Johnson's Russia List
#6135
14 March 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Note from David Johnson:
1. Interfax: Most Russians have neither spare cash nor savings.
2. Interfax: Most Russians think military action in Chechnya should
continue.
3. AP: Authorities Launch Probe in Chechnya.
4. Novye Izvestia: Otto Latsis, DANGEROUS DRUG. The state should not act as
if the allegations against it are trifles. (re 1999 bombings)
5. Izvestia: PUTIN IS WITH US. President Vladimir Putin answers some
questions.
6. Argumenty i Fakty: Maria Kakturskaya, RUSSIAN MILLIONAIRES WANDERING
ABOUT
EUROPE. Russian business leaders prefer to invest abroad.
7. Chicago Tribune: Sid Smith, Eifman explores the conflict of artists and
their creations.
8. EastWest Institute Russian Regional Report: PARTY BUILDING IN THE
RUSSIAN
REGIONS.
9. Obshchaya Gazeta: 'Stormy Debate' on Voter Rights Guarantee Law Expected
in Duma.
10. BBC Monitoring: Russian Orthodox believers protest near Roman Catholic
church in Siberian city.
11. Ira Straus: How anti-imperialism is reinventing the Cold War.]
*******
#1
Most Russians have neither spare cash nor savings
MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) - Seventy percent of the Russians have no
savings and only 25% have some savings, the Public Opinion Foundation said
on Thursday.
This information was obtained in a March 9 poll of 1,500 respondents
from all over Russia.
The majority of the respondents (55%) said they do not have any spare
cash. Those who have some spare cash use it for various purposes: spend it
all at once (21%), save it (15%) or try to make a good investment (up to 5%).
In the past 7-8 years, three-fourths of Russians (75%) did not invest
their money in any financial companies, banks or securities. Those who made
investments reported a negative experience: 11% of the Russian surveyed
said they "lost" the money they invested (17% of the people over 50 years
old said this has happened to them). Only 4% of the respondents reported
having made a profit and 6% said they made no profit, but did not suffer
any losses either.
At the same time, the respondents believe that it is best to invest in
real estate (42%) and U.S. dollars (36%). Fifteen percent of the
respondents consider it wise to invest in land (15%) and another 15% said
it's best to invest money in Sberbank. Then comes investment in jewelry
(8%), gold bars (7%), rubles (7%) and also investments abroad (6%). A less
popular idea is to invest in the shares of Russian companies (3%), works of
art (3%) and Russian commercial banks (2%).
The poll also showed that the overwhelming majority of the Russians do
not want to invest in state bonds (71%). Only 16% of the respondents said
they would like to invest in them.
The respondents were asked how much profit from the purchase of a state
bond they think can be called acceptable . Only 7% of the respondents said
they would be satisfied with 18-20% per annum. Ten percent of the
respondents said they would agree to 20-30% per annum and 14% - to 30-50%
per annum. Some respondents believe that state bonds should bring a profit
of not less than 50-100% per annum (9%) and even over 100% (8%). However,
the majority of the respondents were undecided.
*******
#2
Most Russians think military action in Chechnya should continue
MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) - 40.4% of Russians believe that federal troops
should continue military actions in Chechnya until the rebels are
completely destroyed, the independent Russian Public Opinion and Market
Research (ROMIR - Gallup International) center told Interfax on Thursday.
This information was obtain by polling 2,000 Russians from all federal
districts.
16.7% of those surveyed believe it is necessary to withdraw the troops
from Chechnya and recognize the republic's independence. 15.5% of
respondents said the Chechen problem can be solved only by giving full
power to the republic's administration. [
*******
#3
Authorities Launch Probe in Chechnya
March 14, 2002
By JUDITH INGRAM
MOSCOW (AP) - A group of investigators traveled Thursday to a Chechen
village to investigate claims that Russian troops killed civilians during a
recent search for rebels.
The investigators included officials from the Kremlin-appointed Chechen
administration and military officials, according to the Interfax-Military
News Agency.
They were sent to Starye Atagi a day after hundreds of residents of the
village staged a protest in the capital Grozny, displaying the burned
corpses of seven people they said were civilians killed in a military sweep
last week.
Officials from the Federal Security Service said the bodies were rebels
killed in battle, and that federal forces had to burn down a house where
they had holed up.
``The rebels' bodies were lying on the village streets for about three days
because none of the locals wanted to bury them,'' Gen. Sergei Babkin, head
of the Chechen branch of the security service was quoted as saying by
Interfax.
He said that the portrayal of the dead as civilians was a ``provocation.''
Gen. Gennady Troshev, commander of the Russian troops in the region, said
on RTR state television that the demonstration was a ``100 percent setup.''
But Russia's top human rights official for Chechnya, Viktor Kalamanov,
promised the investigation would be thorough and its results made public.
``The very fact that the corpses exist suggests a crime was committed, or
something happened that is being covered up,'' Kalamanov told Echo of
Moscow radio.
Violence continued across Chechnya. A Russian serviceman in Grozny shot and
killed a Chechen boy who was allegedly throwing stones, Interfax reported.
Thirteen soldiers were wounded Wednesday in the southern region of Shali
when their armored personnel carrier hit a land mine, the news agency said.
Russia's ROMIR public opinion institute published a poll Thursday
indicating that Russian support for the war in Chechnya had dropped by
about 10 percent since autumn. Of 2,000 people surveyed in February, 37
percent said they supported the war and 48 percent said they did not. In
September, 46.5 percent of respondents expressed support for the war and
41.1 percent opposed it.
Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya in 1996, leaving it de facto
independent after losing a 20-month war. They returned in fall 1999 after
rebels raided a neighboring Russian region and a series of apartment house
bombings blamed on Chechens killed about 300.
*******
#4
Novye Izvestia
March 14, 2002
DANGEROUS DRUG
The state should not act as if the allegations against it are trifles
Author: Otto Latsis
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT'S OFFICIAL RESPONSE TO BEREZOVSKY'S
ALLEGATIONS IS BECOMING MORE DISTURBING WITH EACH PASSING DAY. IT'S A
LACK OF RESPONSE. BUT IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE STATE, OUR STATE, CAN
KILL ITS OWN CITIZENS IN ORDER TO PROMOTE ITS INTERESTS, WHETHER TRUE
OR FALSE?
At first, there were explosions of apartment buildings with their
tenants sleeping inside - in Moscow, Volgodonsk, and Buinaksk they
succeeded, the one in Ryazan thwarted (the authorities claimed it was
an exercise merely). They were followed by a war, the second Chechen
war which is still underway (the second war in Russia over a single
decade) and is ascribed to "Chechen connection" allegedly uncovered in
the terrorist acts. After that, there were sporadic suspicions that
Russian secret services themselves had been involved in the
explosions. These suspicions culminated in Liberal Russia's news
conferences in London and Moscow where the "Assault on Russia"
documentary was screened and an eyewitness of the theft of explosives
was introduced to journalists. All this was followed by the Russian
government's official response to the allegations. It is this response
that is becoming a more important and independent event with each
passing day.
Or should we say the lack of a response? A spokesman for the
Federal Security Service (FSB), the target of the allegations, says
the FSB is not going to get involved in debates with Boris Berezovsky
who initiated the allegations. The Prosecutor General's Office chose
this moment to go public with its suspicions that Berezovsky was
involved in General Shpigun's abduction - but implied that it did not
have any evidence.
On the day the London news conference took place, Vladimir Putin
himself was meeting with the Russian Olympic team - smiling and
assuring the athletes and fans that results of the Olympic Games were
not all that bad. This Olympic calm would have been all right, were it
not for a minor detail: the secret services whose involvement in the
terrorist acts is implied are said to have intended to promote Putin
himself for the presidency. Richard Nixon in the United States was
forced to resign after only an allegation that he had wiretapped the
offices of his political opponents.
The documentary already seen by many in Moscow does not contain
any direct evidence of secret services' involvement in the blasts. It
systematizes several unquestionable facts, and notes some others which
the government would have preferred forgotten.
Number One: The public was not offered any logical explanation of
the odd "exercise" involving explosives in Ryazan; and there wee the
even stranger and conflicting explanations offered by the Interior
Ministry and FSB afterwards.
Number Two: these appalling crimes, which claimed so many lives,
remain unsolved.
Number Three: the authorities lied in saying that the criminals
behind the explosions in Moscow would be captured and tried, and that
the trial would prove a link to Chechnya beyond doubt. The trial was
closed to the public, but even so the authorities failed to conceal
the fact that there was not a single Chechen among those on trial.
Number Four: nobody bothered to deny the testimony of N.
Chekulin, former acting director of the Roskonversvzryvtsenter, during
the London news conference, on the theft of hexogene explosives. The
public was merely told that he had reported the thefts after the
explosions of apartment buildings. This testimony is indirect
evidence.
Number Five: no evidence of a Chechnya link has ever been
presented to the public. In the meantime, the campaign in Chechnya -
launched in the emotional atmosphere created by the explosions and the
Chechnya link theory - has already claimed many more lives of Russian
soldiers and Chechen civilians than the explosions themselves. The
campaign is still underway.
These facts alone (facts, not groundless rumors) indicate that
the state is not doing its job. Hence, several more questions arise.
Is there irrefutable evidence that the Russian secret services
were involved in the explosions? No, there is not. Neither are there
answers to some quite reasonable questions for these services. And
Chekulin's appearance makes it quite clear that the public does not
know all facts yet.
Here is another question, then. Is it possible that the state,
our state, can kill its own citizens in order to promote its
interests, whether true or false?
During the Budennovsk tragedy, pollsters found that 12% of
respondents (which means at least 17 million Russians on the
nationwide scale!) favored killing the terrorists together with the
hostages. These respondents thought it acceptable to murder 2,000
hospital patients, some of them children, in order to prevent one
hundred or so criminals from escaping. And guerrilla leader Shamil
Basayev was only demanding negotiations.
Perhaps these 12% only reflected the opinion of people in the
street? Here is what was discussed by the Presidential Council at the
time (I was present). The FSB chief at the time, Sergei Stepashin
(absent from the meeting), was blamed for his failure to use as a
pretext the fact that Basayev's gang - along with 100 voluntary
hostages - had taken a different route out from the route agreed upon.
The opinion prevailed that Stepashin should have seized the
opportunity and ordered all of them gunned down. Was that what cost
Stepashin his job?
No, I cannot rest assured that our society considers it
unthinkable that our state would do such a thing. And if this theory
is not impossible, the state should not be reacting as though some
trifles were under discussion. This is a dangerous drug. Society gets
used to the idea that "anything goes".
*******
#5
Izvestia
March 14, 2002
PUTIN IS WITH US
President Vladimir Putin answers some questions
Author: Ekaterina Grigoryeva
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
IZVESTIA IS CELEBRATING ITS 85TH ANNIVERSARY. PRESIDENT VLADIMIR
PUTIN VISITED THE EDITORIAL OFFICE TO MARK THE OCCASION. THERE HE
CONGRATULATED THE STAFF, ASKED SOME QUESTIONS, AND GAVE A FORM OF NEWS
CONFERENCE ON A NUMBER OF CURRENT ISSUES.
"I would like to congratulate all of you - the newspaper staff
and readers - on this anniversary. You have really managed to achieve
a great deal." These were the pleasant words with which President
Vladimir Putin began his visit to the Izvestia editorial office
yesterday, to mark the newspaper's 85th anniversary. It turned out
Putin was also congratulating himself in congratulating readers of
Izvestia: "I read your newspaper every day. If I want to compare,
collate information, I certainly turn to Izvestia. Your newspaper has
always had the wonderful feature of being up-to-date. As far as I can
see, you have now become economically efficient. This is due to the
talent of both the executives and the staff. When there is economic
freedom, there is freedom for creative activity, of stating one's own
point of view on any issue. It means a great deal to me that you do
not abuse your freedom. Reading Izvestia is just the same as
consulting an intelligent person."
Putin was particularly interested in the economics of running a
newspaper. The president asked what was most profitable (and was told
that advertising accounted for 64% of profits), and how many staff
were needed to publish a daily newspaper (185 journalists). And he
gave his conclusions: "Economic survival seems not that difficult, at
first sight. However, you have been able to survive creatively."
Putin admitted he mostly paid attention to economic articles in
the newspaper.
The president acknowledged the significance and influence of the
media. Putin said that newspaper articles sometimes make him change
his mind, even drastically. He did not name specific examples, but
said good and objective newspaper reporting encouraged an extra
business-like frame of mind: "There arises a wish to do something, to
correct or continue something the article describes."
The president was asked many questions: what would happen to
newspapers, books, and television, and on burning issues which have
nothing to do with the media - for example, whether restoration of
capital punishment was possible in Russia.
"I will do everything I can to prevent this," answered the
president. "I understand that such a move could easily yield extra
political points. Especially since the overwhelming majority of people
in Russia are not specialists in criminology, whereas any
criminologist would say this measure is senseless. If one's goal is
not to boost a politician's rating by exploiting this topic, but to
fight crime, it is clear that introducing the death penalty does not
solve this problem. The problem can only be solved by hard work in
several areas of state activity at once: improving the national
economy, resolving social problems, eliminating poverty and social
inequality, raising public awareness, and strengthening the law
enforcement system. Announcing that there will be a death penalty is
the easy way out - and there would be applause for a while. I know
some people in politics will abuse this issue - perhaps some parties
will make it the basic campaign issue in the parliamentary and
presidential elections. I am prepared for that."
Neither did the president conceal his essential stance on the
issue of alternative civilian service: everyone should have a choice,
but no one has the right to speculate on this topic. All that happens
before a relevant law is passed is unlawful, and ought to draw an
"appropriate response" from prosecutors. This applies to the
experiment in Nizhny Novgorod as well (Izvestia covered this a week
ago) - Putin described it as politicized and directly connected with
the upcoming elections for city mayor.
"As for reducing the period of conscription, I think this is
moving in the right direction. In fact, it's the first step toward
creating a professional army. What remains for us to do is to
calculate when, how much, and on what terms we will be able to reduce
conscription at the first, second, and third stages. When will we be
able to start this, and what will it cost? Unfortunately, or
fortunately, unlike many other people who try to tackle this issue and
politicize it, I am not authorized to simply talk as I please here; I
am responsible for the situation in Russia. However, I can say that
such estimates are currently being prepared."
Since Putin had admitted paying the most attention to economic
articles in newspapers, the questions that followed were appropriate -
for instance, what should be done about income tax. The president said
once again that the 13% flat-rate tax was a long-term arrangement. The
government had promised this, did it not? Neither does Putin think it
advisable to reduce the tax level: "Reduce it to what?"
Another question concerned introducing value added tax on books.
"They discussed this issue with me," the president said. "However
I did not interfere in the Cabinet's work. There are areas in which I
should not intervene, despite my authority. You say the EU is advising
Germany to reduce taxes on book publishing? I believe it's not always
correct for us to compare Russia with other countries - Germany,
Norway, or the US. The purity of experiments and achieving targets is
easy to track there. To our great regret, any tax break granted to a
narrow sector is always used as widely as possible in this country.
Therefore, another strategy would be ideal for us: reducing value
added tax and making it the same for every sector of the economy,
without any exceptions. One should try to help specific individuals,
but not sectors or the economy or enterprises. Exact categories of
people, consumers of goods and services. This would be much fairer and
much more effective.
The president was also asked about the fate of the TV-6 and NTV
television networks.
"I am absolutely sure that I will not intervene in this process,"
said Putin. "I will not conceal that the TV-6 frequency tender was
mentioned recently in Almaty; some CIS leaders said it wouldn't be a
bad thing to improve the positions of Mir (a television channel
focusing on CIS activities, one of the tender participants. - Ed.).
but I am not going to interfere."
A question about the fate of St. Petersburg (in light of
continuing debates on whether some capital city functions should be
transferred there) seemed to have an impact on the president; St.
Petersburg cannot develop actively without an inflow of investment,
which has lately become apparent.
"Perhaps transferring part of some central functions would liven
up the atmosphere, both in terms of morale and materially. The
question is only which exact functions, and how much effort this would
require. For instance, would Izvestia agree to move to St. Petersburg?
Distribution of central authority throughout the nation is better for
it, of course. Distribution of financial, administrative, and other
resources would be more equal, and at the same time fewer swindlers
and crooks would be concentrated in one place. For they always
concentrate round the government."
The end of the meeting involved an exchange of gifts, of course.
It was actually an exchange of rarities. Izvestia editor-in-chief
Mikhail Kozhokin handed the president the original of one of the
newspaper's first issues - dated March 14, 1917. Putin presented a
Gzhel platter with a picture of the Kremlin, bearing his own
signature.
(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky)
*******
#6
Argumenty i Fakty
No. 11
March 13, 2002
RUSSIAN MILLIONAIRES WANDERING ABOUT EUROPE
Russian business leaders prefer to invest abroad
Author: Maria Kakturskaya
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
MAJOR RUSSIAN OIL COMPANIES ARE BECOMING MORE AND MORE INTERESTED IN
INVESTING MONEY ABROAD, DUE TO FAVORABLE STATE POLICIES IN EUROPE AND
THE UNITED STATES. RUSSIAN EXECUTIVES OUGHT TO DEVELOP THE RUSSIAN
ECONOMY, BUT INSTEAD THEY CREATE NEW JOBS FOR FOREIGNERS, WHILE
RUSSIAN COMPANIES SEEK INVESTMENT.
According to the Russian investment company Troika-Dialog, the
total sum of investment from Russia amounted to $3 billion last year!
Troika-Dialog analyst V. Nesterov says, "Large companies invest
abroad. They mostly operate in the oil and gas sector. LukOil was the
first to invest abroad, then Gazprom, YUKOS and others followed its
example."
"Our money is flowing to the west," says S. Prikhodko, an analyst
at the Transition Economy Institute. "LukOil invested $246 million
during nine months of 2001, which is nearly twice as much as in 2000.
Russian companies develop the economies of other countries. They earn
money in Russia and invest in plants and factories abroad. And then
they place their income abroad too."
MARKET LAWS
"And what do you expect? These are market laws," says V.
Nesterov. "It is quite natural that our companies prefer to work in
civilized countries. Even in Greece and Bulgaria the legislation is
clearer and more convenient for business than in Russia. And in the
United States everything is explained in detail. A businessman is not
likely to face any unexpected problems there."
In Russia, problems await you at every corner. Employees are
Russians, equipment is made in Russia, the working pace is Russian:
either there's no gasoline, or it is necessary to bribe local
authorities. Recently, LukOil has launched a joint project with an
Italian firm Agip on mining in Egypt. And they say that the revenue
will be much greater than the mines on Sakhalin Island bring. Slavneft
is securing its position in Sudan, Rosneft is opening mines in
Columbia. Gazprom invested $600 million in reservoir engineering in
Iran.
And why should, say, the Maisky Chai company develop decrepit tea
plantations in the Krasnodar region, remaining from Soviet times, if
they can buy them in India or Sri-Lanka? The weather conditions are
much better there, and production has been settled long ago. Tea
companies, producing Princess Nuri and Princess Gita teas, have moved
to South America, Russian business executives are to be seen in coffee
plantations.
And what about prices? On the Russian market oil costs around $30
per ton, while on the world market the cost is $150-160. Does it make
a difference? By the way, transporting crude oil through oil pipes
abroad is cheaper than transporting refined oil: tariffs are lower.
That is why there is demand for refineries closer to Europe. LukOil
has such refineries in Bulgaria (for $101 million) and Romania, a
whole net of selling oil in Europe. YUKOS is going buy shares of the
Mazheykaisk refinery in Lithuania and one in Gdansk, Poland. Moreover,
they bought a 49% interest in the large oil company Transpetroleum in
Slovakia and now they can transport oil farther to Europe.
WHAT IS A NAME WORTH?
It is noteworthy that the West does not welcome Russian business
executives with open arms. For obtaining the controlling interest in
the chemical plant in Hungary, Gazprom had to use to Austrian
companies (Central European Oil and Vienna Capital Partners) not "to
break local laws in connection with foreigners". LukOil is not welcome
in poland, and in Czechia Russian companies do not participate in
buying business at all.
But nothing can stop Russians. On the eastern coast of the United
States LukOil bought large packets of shares of Getty Petroleum
Marketing for $70 million a year ago. The Russian oil company has
1,300 filling stations. "We even have some profits," says D. Dolgov,
head of the press service of LukOil. "It is quite profitable to sell
oil in the United States - it is expensive, unlike in Russia."
However, taxas in the United States are higher than in Russia
too. "Filling stations in the United States are more like promotion,
so that shares of oil companies are worth more on the world market,"
says Vladimir Mau, head of the Economic Reform Center. "The profits
from foreign investment are not large. For example, LukOIl got only
3.228 million rubles in 2000, from all the investment income of more
than 96 billion rubles."
The easiest way is prohibiting Russian companies from operating
abroad; let them invest in Russian mines and oil and gas fields. Why
should we ask for foreign investments, when ours are "flowing away"?
But our companies must be interested in developing Russian
economy, instead of creating jobs for foreigners. And meanwhile, 4
billion rubles which YUKOS is going to invest in Central Europe by
2005 is 200 times greater than what it would cost to re-activate all
old oil wells in Russia. By the way, this would create nearly 20,000
new jobs.
But it looks like it is too late. Russian laws cannot make
business leaders invest money where they do not want to invest it.
(Translated by Daria Brunova)
*******
#7
Chicago Tribune
March 13, 2002
Eifman explores the conflict of artists and their creations
By Sid Smith
Tribune arts critic
Boris Eifman quietly revolutionized Soviet dance 25 years ago, heading up
his own company in Leningrad at 30, a young age for artistic leadership in
Russia at that time.
But it took more than a decade for his troupe to play the West, performing
in Paris in 1989. And it wasn't until the '90s that his company finally
visited the U.S., arriving in Chicago for the first time in 2000.
Each time he comes, his reputation soars. He is widely regarded as the
greatest Russian choreographer since George Balanchine, turning that
nation's mastery of ballet on its head and devising his own inimitable,
often indescribable style. "A bold but benevolent sorcerer," one critic
dubbed him in hailing his unique blend of dance, theater, film and visual art.
His works call forth great cultural icons in their very titles. For
example, "Tchaikovsky: The Mystery of Life and Death" (Wednesday and
Thursday) and "Don Juan and Moliere" (Friday through March 17) are the two
full-length pieces on the bill when the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg
returns for a third Chicago visit to the Auditorium Theatre.
Catherine the Great, Hamlet and balletic touchstone Giselle are subjects of
past works. "The artist has both a real and unreal life," he says. "From
the beginning, it was important for me to create my own world and find my
own language. To find the form of the dance that can relate the ideas of
the world and talk to people in a new tongue. That's the real part. That
someone unseen, someone imaginary, blessed my endeavor and brought me
success is the unreal part."
The 55-year-old Eifman was born in an unlikely place for a future ballet
great: Siberia. "After the war," he explains, "my father was an engineer
sent to Siberia to build new factories. My parents weren't exiles, but back
then it was the kind of offer to which you couldn't say no." Fortunately,
the family sojourn there ended while Eifman was still very young, and the
family moved to Kishinev, the capital of the Moldovan republic, where he
became interested in dance and graduated from ballet school in 1964. He
moved to Leningrad to study and began choreographing there in the 1970s,
staging "The Firebird" at the Kirov Theater in 1975.
In 1977, he started his own company, then called the Leningrad New Ballet.
The Soviet authorities at the time were thorns in his side, as they were
for all artists. "The Soviets controlled the arts as important ideological
tools," he says. "I always had problems with the authorities. It was hard
to put on an office form exactly what it was I was trying to do."
He is also Jewish in a land not always tolerant of that religion. For
Eifman, during the Soviet era, anti-Semitism was more subtle than explicit.
"On an official level, there was no anti-Semitism," he says. "On the
emotional level, yes. Especially with bureaucrats. I knew they thought of
me as a Jew first and then as an artist."
After perestroika in the 1980s, "I had more freedom, and my fantasies
became more free."
"Moliere," premiered in 2001, set to music by Mozart and Hector Berlioz,
intercuts between the experiences of the real-life French dramatist and the
fictional hero. "I found it an important opportunity to show the conflict
between the artist and his product," Eifman says.
"Tchaikovsky," from 1993, seeks to understand "how a great composer, who
wrote such beautiful music, mentions suicide in his letters and even tried
to kill himself several times."
Like his previous "Red Giselle," about the 19th Century heroine and the
life of an actual ballerina, both works on view this visit deal with the
inner artist and his public creations, and are inspired by artists Eifman
says he admires.
"When I was very young, I saw `Swan Lake' at the opera house, and the
impression was a very powerful one. I can't imagine life without that music
and dance."
His company's Western success is more than nice for the ego. It also spells
financial survival. "We need to travel in the times we're not performing in
St. Petersburg, and we're happy with our success. It keeps us alive."
*******
#8
EastWest Institute Russian Regional Report
(Vol. 7, No. 10, 13 March 2002)
AVAILABLE ON-LINE
RRR in PDF: http://click.topica.com/maaaiB4aaRsOda3Gd7tb/
Russian Edition: http://click.topica.com/maaaiB4aaRsOea3Gd7tb/
PARTY BUILDING IN THE RUSSIAN REGIONS
Despite their reputation for being venal and vulgar, political parties are a
necessary part of the democratic process. They cultivate new leaders, define
the issues facing society, and make it possible for people across vast
distances to work together. Political parties have not developed very quickly
in Russia for a variety of reasons. Seventy years of single party rule under
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union discredited the very idea of
political parties for many Russians. More concretely, governors block party
development because they do not want to have independent organizations
operating in their regions.
However, the 21 December 2003 State Duma elections and the 7 March
2004 Russian presidential race provide strong incentives to form political
parties. The Kremlin has set up a new "party of power" to mobilize its troops
and the Communists are also marshalling their forces. The articles in this
section illustrate the difficulties each side faces in coordinating between
Moscow and the regions.
In November 2001, Yurii Luzhkov's Otechestvo and its ally Vsya Rossiya
joined with the pro-Kremlin Yedinstvo to create a new pro-Kremlin party
called Yedinnaya Rossiya. The three parties officially disbanded and agreed
to merge their regional chapters into the new party. The party is closely
identified with President Vladimir Putin, though he is not officially a
member.
The former party of power, Viktor Chernomyrdin's Our Home is Russia,
fared poorly in the 1995 State Duma elections. In contrast, Yedinstvo
performed well enough in the 1999 State Duma elections, to set the stage for
Putin's ultimate victory in the March 2000 presidential polling. However, the
new party shares many features of its predecessor. It has no coherent
ideology beyond a vaguely defined centrism. There is little practical
organization. And many opportunists want to join simply to gain access to
politicians who can dispense political and financial benefits.
Yedinnaya Rossiya is pursuing a radically different policy from Our
Home is Russia in the regions. Chernomyrdin's party tried to sign up as many
governors as possible to boost its ranks and generate electoral support. This
strategy reflected the general Yeltsin-era efforts to woo the governors. In
contrast, Yedinnaya Rossiya is setting up party branches that are in
opposition to the governors in their region, reflecting Putin's general
efforts to reduce the governors' powers.
The new party is facing many difficulties in carrying out the
administration's mandate outside of Moscow. In many cases, the governors are
trying to take over the party's local branches to minimize local opposition
and to use its opportunities to extract resources from the center. In some
places, other regional elite groups are fighting to control the party
chapter, complicating the Kremlin effort. In Chelyabinsk, for example, a
group of businessmen is fighting against the governor's administration for
control of the party.
Another problem is that the local branches of the Otechestvo and
Yedinstvo are often not interested in combining their resources since the
politicians in these parties are rivals. The experiences of Kursk and Tver in
setting up Yedinnaya Rossiya party chapters illustrate these issues in
greater detail.
The Communist Party has much greater internal discipline as the report
from Smolensk indicates. Nevertheless, most observers give the leftists
little chance of victory since pensioners make up most of their shrinking
voter pool.
******
#9
'Stormy Debate' on Voter Rights Guarantee Law Expected in Duma
Obshchaya Gazeta
7 March 2002
[translation for personal use only]
Report by Valeriy Tsygankov: "Veshnyakov's Wings To be Cut: Party
Members Will Handle Assessing the Will of the Voters"
Over three thousand amendments to the law on the basic guarantees of
citizens' voting rights have accumulated in the State Duma. The
document's second reading examination has been slated for 20 March. A
stormy debate is expected. The battle will be waged over choosing one
of two strategies: Strengthening the role of the electoral commissions
or, on the contrary, restricting their influence over the progress and
results of a vote.
The current version of the law regulates in detail the conducting of
election campaigns and stipulates very harsh measures against offenders.
But what actually happens in elections pleases neither citizens nor the
authorities. At a recent press conference, Central Electoral Commission
Head Aleksandr Veshnyakov called on potential candidates to "learn the
lessons of campaigns gone by." Mr. Veshnyakov cited a series of
controversial examples of how contenders show forgetfulness when filling
out declarations of income and property, get confused over the periods
when they have been in leadership positions, and submit forged lists of
signatures. All in all, they sin with no regard for the consequences.
The electoral commissions, however, were practically unscathed by their
leader's criticism. Moreover, the Central Electoral Commission head let
it be understood that he expects the parliamentarians to legislatively
strengthen the electoral commissions' role and to expand the range of
sanctions against cheating candidates.
Many deputies believe, however, that it is precisely Veshnyakov's
subordinates that are the main offenders. Aleksandr Saliy, the head of
the Duma Commission on Election Legislation, told your Obschchaya Gazeta
correspondent, "The mechanism of falsification has been used everywhere
and at all levels since Yeltsin's election in 1996. At the same time,
experience has shown that our electoral commissions are not under any
jurisdiction. We have only two cases where commission heads have been
convicted (and that was suspended) for straightforward falsification.
Things have reached the point that there is not even any need to dump
ballot papers: They count the votes in secret, put an empty return
under their arm, hop out the window, and run to consult the
administration head about what to write there."
Mr. Saliy believes the first step in reforming the election system could
be a partial abandonment of procedure of collecting signatures.
Practice has shown that the mandatory collection of local residents'
signatures does not stop "dark horses" unknown to the voters from
emerging among the candidates. Compiling lists is a technical matter
for people who have money and power.
On the other hand, the "list system" is one of the levers for eliminating
disagreeable contenders. According to information from the For Fair
Elections foundation, in Bashkortostan armed police officers were sent to
addresses to check signatures. Looking down the barrel of a submachine
gun, many people refused to acknowledge their signatures. Moscow's
intervention was needed to stop these "operational" checks. It is
planned that the new law will stipulate that party candidates (including
those in the regions) can do without collecting signatures. For
candidates in single-seat districts, a deposit will be an alternative to
a list. Incidentally, the mixed election system will cover the entire
federation.
Nevertheless, deputies on Saliy's commission consider the main question
to be who will count and sort the ballot papers and how. A
characteristic incident took place in the election for mayor of
Volgograd. The car on which the ballot papers were brought from the
city's most densely populated rayon disappeared. For "only" five and a
bit hours. The route takes less than an hour with the laziest driving.
In the end the "Flying Dutchman" appeared again. In a lather as if she
had not been driven but had run alongside the car, a female
representative of the rayon electoral commission explained to
journalists, "We had almost got here when we noticed that we had
forgotten to bring the signature lists with us. We had to go back. In
the morning we got stuck in a traffic jam." The upshot was that it
turned out that the "temporarily lost" rayon had amicably voted for the
current city mayor, even though preliminary polls reported that his main
rival enjoyed much greater sympathy there.
It is now being suggested that a new term -- "falsification" -- be
introduced into the law and that it be interpreted in detail: Rewriting
returns, dumping voting papers, or distortion when drawing up election
documentation. The list of potential offenders includes practically all
those participating in the election process: Candidates and their
teams, electoral commissions, administrations, media instruments, and the
voters themselves.
The means for staffing electoral commissions will also change radically.
The law would seem to clearly prescribe that an electoral commission is
formed by the legislative bodies and that the commission includes
representatives of all the electoral associations that have their own
State Duma faction. In practice, local authorities completely ignore
these norms. So it is being suggested that there be a detailed
prescription of who will select cadres for the electoral commission and
how and that there be a stipulation of the mandatory observance of the
party principle of representation.
Reformers believe the voting process must become maximally transparent.
A whole series of amendments is devoted to how to make election
documentation really accessible to the gaze of public observers.
The elections in Irkutsk showed what the absence of observers leads to.
The main rival to current Governor Sergey Levchenko was unable to monitor
around sixty polling places in the second round. He did not have enough
people. And it was precisely from there that returns came with a
300-400-vote difference favoring his power-invested rival. They closed
Levchenko's initial lead.
On the other hand, when a group of trained observers keep watch at a
polling place, a restraining effect comes into operation. The places
where workers of the For Fair Elections foundation were working as
monitors got by without controversy. Moreover, victory at these places
was won by people whom the local press and sociologists had put down as
outsiders. The turnout was higher too. When people see that something
depends on their votes, you do not have to inveigle them to the ballot
boxes with free boxes of candy.
******
#10
BBC Monitoring
Russian Orthodox believers protest near Roman Catholic church in Siberian
city
Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 0700 gmt 14 Mar 02
[Presenter] An unprecedented religious conflict is taking place in Russia.
The Vatican's decision to set up a diocese in Novosibirsk was met by local
Russian Orthodox believers with an action of protest which was staged
outside the Roman Catholic cathedral.
[Correspondent Anastasiya Zhuravleva] Believers from several Russian
Orthodox parishes have gathered for a standing prayer outside the Roman
Catholic cathedral in Novosibirsk. Both Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic
priests say that this is the first such protest between two Christian
churches in the last ten centuries.
[Aleksandr Novopashin, captioned as senior priest in a Russian Orthodox
church, addressing the people gathered for the prayer] This is not an
attack, this is not a row or an empty worldly scandal or a political rally.
This is a standing prayer.
[Correspondent] The senior priest of the Aleksandr Nevskiy Cathedral then
finished this action of protest against the Roman Catholic Church by
entering the Roman Catholic cathedral and leaving a petition signed by his
parishioners by the altar.
[Iosif Vert, captioned as, presumably Roman Catholic, bishop] A Christian
cannot come under the walls of a church to protest against the presence of
another branch of the Christian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, which
has always been present in our city. These people cannot be Christians.
[Correspondent] This aggressive action was provoked by the establishment of
a Roman Catholic diocese in Novosibirsk following the Pope's decision.
Previously, the Roman Catholic Church was represented here by an apostolic
administration.
[Video, captioned as done by an amateur, shows the protesters outside the
cathedral and the Russian Orthodox priest leaving their petition at the
altar.]
******
#11
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002
Subject: How anti-imperialism is reinventing the Cold War
David,
I wrote this as the first in a series of three articles in July 1999, but
refrained from publishing them at the time, in the belief that it would be
counter-productive. People were not ready to hear it. The suppressive
language of anti-imperialism, the spiteful accusations of "imperialism" and
the cowardly unfounded accusations of "racism", could be expected to turn its
publication into a basis for further obstruction of thinking rather than for
its development.
Today, perhaps, the situation is different. The competing anti-imperialist
ideologies took their toll after Americans opposed any Russian military
action against the Taliban in 1999-2000. Now that our country has paid the
horrible price of September 11, maybe people are ready to think about matters
more honestly. And they very much need to.
Mr. Putin led Russia to put aside its version of the struggle against
"American imperialist influence" in Central Asia, but to the extent that
America reverts to the struggle against "Russian imperialist influence" in
Central Asia and the Caucasus, it risks ruining the new relationship and
ending up with an even greater bitterness than before it started. This bad
game is presently playing itself in Georgia, where, as Gordon Hahn has
pointed out (in The Russia Journal, March 8, 2002, reprinted on JRL), we risk
undermining our own purposes for the sake of doing it on an anti-Russian
imperialist basis. The U.S. insists that Russian forces play no role.
Russians respond by demanding restriction of the activity of U.S. forces in
Georgia. The result is to weaken any anti-terrorism effort and leave more
space for terrorist forces to survive.
Here, then, is the first of three articles from 1999.
Best,
Ira
- - - -
Would it be wise for the U.S. to base its policy in the Caucasus and Central
Asia primarily on opposition to Russian imperialism? Several questions are
involved here: Is Russian imperialism the real issue in the region, and is it
being defined honestly? To the extent that there is Russian imperialism in
the region, is opposition to it an interest of the U.S., and its main
interest at that in the region? And, how do Russians perceive the
anti-imperialist focus on the part of the U.S., and what are the consequences
for U.S.-Russia relations?
Starting with the first question: "Russian imperialism" is not a transparent
term. Opponents of "Russia imperialism" use the term to describe almost any
kind of hegemonic Russian influence on the region, any asymmetric Russian
influence, or any client-type relationship. Under these definitions, it would
be impossible for Russia to avoid "imperialist" relations in this region,
given its proximity and its asymmetric weight. If Western policy were to
proceed on the basis of an anti-imperialist goal coupled with the implied
broad definition of imperialism, a hostile struggle of the West against
Russian influence would be not only inevitable but interminable.
The idea of expelling Russian imperialism or influence from the region is
utopian, but it forms a mirror image to the idea among Russian nationalists
of expelling Western imperialism or influence from the region. We are back to
mutual enemy-imaging, as in Cold War days; but without the profound
ideological opposition between the two socio-political regimes that used to
give the Soviet Union and the West good reason for regarding one another as
geopolitical enemies.
In reality, an asymmetric Western influence on the region is inevitable --
and so is an asymmetric Russian influence on the region. Given the asymmetry
between the wealth and power of the West compared to the new states of the
region, the West is bound to have a heavy one-way influence with them. Ditto
for the effects of Russia's proximity and relative power compared to the
states of the region.
The anti-imperialists on both sides follow an approach that would make it
inevitable for Russian and the West to be locked in an interminable conflict
expel one another's influence from the region. Under the rubric of the
struggle against the imperialist influence of the other side, there would
ensue an intense competition for more and more influence in the region.
In this fashion, the anti-imperialist approach serves to (a) exacerbate
actual imperialistic tendencies and (b) send Russia and the West back into a
state of mutual geopolitical enmity.
The roots of this situation go back to the anti-imperialist ideologies of
both the Soviet Union and America in the Cold War, if not earlier. For the
Soviet Union, any Western influence anywhere in the world was a part of the
amorphous omnipresent world-devouring "capitalist imperialism"; consequently,
any extension of Soviet influence, including direct conquest, was a
legitimate act in the anti-imperialist struggle. For America, any Soviet
influence anywhere in the world was a part of the growth of the concrete
Soviet empire with its omnivorous hunger for power and its goal of world
domination; consequently, any extension of Western influence was a legitimate
part of the anti-imperialist struggle.
In both countries, the fervor for anti-imperialism went back to their
respective revolutions, which were fought under anti-imperialist banners.
Accordingly, the expansion of either country or of its influence, even on the
occasions when it was motivated by pragmatic considerations such as oil,
always had to proceed under a rubric of anti-imperialist rhetoric.
Both America and the Soviet Union equated the defeat of imperialism with
"liberation". In the Soviet Union, this meant treating the overthrow of
capitalism and expropriation of Western investments as if it meant freedom or
prosperity for the people, something it manifestly did not mean in most
cases. America, this meant treating national independence as if it inherently
meant human freedom and democracy, an equation that gets reinforced in the
American mind every 4th of July. This made it hard for Americans to take note
of the fact that independent nations can be just as ruthless as colonial
masters or worse, even though this was demonstrated clearly by a number of
post-colonial regimes since the 1960s; and it made it impossible to formulate
any logical conclusions or policy prescriptions from this fact.
The anti-imperialism went deeper in America than in Russia, since America was
virtually founded as a political entity by its anti-imperialist revolution of
1776, whereas Russia had existed proudly as an empire for centuries before it
went over to an anti-imperialist ideology in 1917. The American
anti-imperialism was more sincere and more taken for granted; the Russian
anti-imperialism was more an artificial ideological construct, interfering in
grotesque ways in public discourse and thinking, but also more easily put
aside in practice because the undemocratic regime had an easier time being
hypocritical.
When Russia and America became the two main world powers, their
anti-imperialist ideologies compelled them to struggle against one another's
power and influence anywhere and everywhere in the world. To say this is not
a matter of imputing a moral equivalency or saying that the Cold War was a
mistake. There was real cause for struggle between the respective
socio-political regimes, irrespective of the question of imperialism. And it
was indeed a struggle for freedom on the Western side -- but because of the
domestic nature of the Soviet regime, not, or not primarily, because of its
imperialism.
What the anti-imperialism served to do was to universalize the struggle and
render mutual opposition an a priori assumption at every spot on the globe:
imperialist influences were by definition everywhere, and the struggle
against them had to be everywhere. It created additional layers of vicious
circles of mutual suspicion and mutually opposed definitions of the national
interest, which made it much harder for the Cold War to be brought to an end.
For the conflict to end thoroughly, not only would the Soviet political
regime have had to be changed, but the dual anti-imperialisms would have had
to be put aside.
I can remember saying something like the above paragraph back in 1982 at a
Forum for U.S.-Soviet Dialogue in Irkutsk. The point about the
confrontational consequences of the mutual anti-imperialism was one of the
few things I said that some of my counterparts on the Soviet side understood
and appreciated. Of course they did not like the other part, about the need
for changing the Soviet political regime. Within the space of a decade,
nevertheless, the Soviet political regime was abolished and the Cold War was
ended, although some Russia-West tensions remained or were quickly revived.
What role did anti-imperialism play in this sequence of events? At first
sight, the verdict is mixed. The concrete Soviet empire was walked away from
in 1989 and 1991, and the walkaway from the European sections of the empire
did indeed play a crucial role in bringing an end to the Cold War. The Soviet
Union put aside its own anti-imperialist ideology, but no new theory replaced
it, so it could easily come back in a new form. Anti-imperialist ideology
survived all the while in the West; it applauded Russia's walk-away from
empire, but was never quite satisfied with this: it threatened to revive the
conflict at any moment because of its inevitable tendency to perceive a new
Russian imperialism wherever there is asymmetrical Russian influence.
Only a couple years after the Cold War ended, a knee-jerk struggle against
one another's influence started getting renewed. The struggle against one
another's imperialism had evidently outlived the Cold War era.
Anti-imperialism survived especially easily on the American side, since the
Americans were always the more sincere in their anti-imperialist sentiments,
whose origins had nothing to do with the Cold War but went back to 1776.
On the Russian side, the regime in the late 1980s and early 1990s actually
seems to have adopted the American version of anti-imperialism. This meant
that Russia would have to stop repressing its outlying republics and abandon
its empire. This anti-imperialist program was carried out unilaterally from
1989 to 1993, without quid pro quo, in an unprecedently fast and far-reaching
withdrawal from empire. It turned out to bring Russia very few visible
benefits, while the costs seemed to keep growing year after year, both
economically and strategically. Western involvement grew uninterruptedly in
the former imperial realm, not only for positive economic purposes but also
under the rubric of struggle against the remnants of Russian imperialism.
In face of these results, an anti-Western-imperialism outlook was gradually
revived on the Russian side. It was done with the help of ideological
artifice, not by mere continuity of Cold War attitudes and formulae, but
building on those attitudes and formulae nevertheless. The ideological feat
was performed best by the fascist-leaning imperialists, such as Dugin and
Prokhanov; they reworked Soviet anti-imperialist doctrine into a more
spiritual Slavophilic form: the Western capitalist imperialism was a purely
selfish intrusion of Western interests into the organic societies of the
world, corrupting those societies and destroying their self-regenerating
capabilities, all for Western financial benefit and the benefit of the
international bankers-New World Order conspiracy, which does not trouble like
an honest traditional empire would to spend the resources that would be
needed for maintaining order and social regeneration in the societies it is
exploiting.
It can be seen how this approach incorporates some major aspects of Leninist
ideology, but how it also deepens Leninism in a spiritual direction: it takes
it away from an exclusively economic focus on the chaotic influence of big
Western capital on other societies and broadens it to attack the chaotic
influence of Western liberal society in all its aspect. It ends up
essentially identical to Nazi ideology, which was also an anti-imperialist
ideology, much though that fact may be forgotten in the West. It provides an
explicit anti-imperialist justification for building concrete autarchic
military empires: this is the way of strengthening the capabilities of the
organic societies for resistance against the degenerative open society of the
New World Order. The eternal Atlantic, with its amorphous open society and
free trade, is set against the eternal Eurasia with its organic nations and
concrete empires. The new anti-imperialist ideology is less ambitious than
the old universalistic Soviet one, but also more irresponsible: the old
ideology had to accept responsibility for laying the foundations of a new
world order of its own in place of the Western-imperialist one, but the new
ideology is in principle satisfied to establish limited concrete empires and
to confound the West's New World Order by promoting a multipolar balance of
organic imperial powers. In both cases, however, it is amorphous influence
from the West that is excoriated as "imperialism", irrespective of whether it
takes the form of concrete empire.
American imperialism, by contrast, has always been directed ever since 1776
against concrete military empires, and also against autarchy as a form of
mercantilist exploitation. Thus, every closed large-scale polity was an evil
empire and its influence abroad was "imperialism" from the American
standpoint; while every open polity and its influence abroad was
"imperialism" from the Soviet and fascist standpoints. The two
anti-imperialisms seem destined to feed forever on one another, that is, to
feed on hatred of what the other is doing, even while fitting together in a
strangely symbiotic way. Neither side is able to exterminate the
"imperialism" of the other, since they are shooting at incommensurable
targets. Both coexist in seeing the other's imperialism everywhere that is
not in their own sphere. The two imperialisms even exist simultaneously in
some countries, since they can exist on different planes. The clash could in
principle go on eternally if it could remain forever focused on the struggle
for influence in the peripheral areas and somehow avoid leading to war
between the core societies.
The two anti-imperialisms have some very different practical aspects in the
Central Asian and Caucasus region. The idea of expelling Russian strategic
influence from this region is far more unrealistic than the idea of expelling
Western strategic influence: the region is next door to Russia, has for a
long time been in the Russian cultural and state sphere, and has far greater
bearing on Russian interests than on Western interests. Nevertheless, it is
also unrealistic to hope to exclude overall Western influence, which
inevitably filters in through ideas and wealth and through the attractive
power of the West, and spills over into influence on the political and
strategic orientation of the state. Only a full-fledged restoration of
concrete, highly centralized, and thoroughly autarchic Russian empire over
the region could expel the Western influence on the states of the region; and
even then it could be done only temporarily and would at each moment have to
be reinforced by suppression of the natural tendencies for interaction.
The concept of "mirror-imaging", or "tit-for-tat", is a valid analytical tool
for structural aspects of this situation. Indeed, it is more valid today than
it was during the Cold War, when there were real reasons underlying the
mutual opposition. Each side's struggle against the other's influence serves
to stimulate the other to conduct an equal and opposite struggle. Together
the two struggles lead to a revival of adversarial checkerboard patterns of
client relations with the states in the periphery region. The adversarial
checkerboard pattern in turn encourages the development and deepening of
mutually adversarial geopolitical outlooks in the core powers. This proceeds
without underlying reason; it proceeds on the force of its own structural
dynamic. Indeed, it process in opposition to sound raison d'etat and to the
conscious reasoning of Russian and Western statesmen, who tell themselves,
quite rightly, that with the Cold War over, the two sides ought to be
partners. The balance between these two impulses - the impulse to new
thinking based on real reasons of state and the impulse to mutually
adversarial tit for tat - has shifted back and forth since 1991 and remains
uncertain. The fact that there is any substantial balance here at all is
deplorable. It means that the real reasons of state have suffered
drastically, going unrealized on a vast scale since 1991. A high price has
been paid for this; further costs cannot help but be paid for it.
*******
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