JRL Research & Analytical Supplement -
JRL Home
Issue No. 30 • March 2005 •
JRL 9084
Editor: Stephen D. Shenfield, sshenfield@verizon.net
RAS archive:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/jrl-ras.cfm
HISTORY: KHRUSHCHEV
1. A new edition of the memoirs
2. Khrushchev as populist
3. Did he bang his shoe?
POLITICS
4. Why do people vote for Putin?
5. The politics of regional enlargement
LAW
6. Hate crimes
DEMOGRAPHY
7. Assessing the 2002 Russian population census
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD
8. Moscow's realpolitik
9. Further on the Ukrainian elections
[10.] Matthew Maly. Ukraine's defining moment
CORRESPONDENCE ON MAT
HISTORY: KHRUSHCHEV
1. A NEW EDITION OF THE MEMOIRS
Pennsylvania State University Press recently published the first of three volumes of a new English-language edition of the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev. (1) It covers the prewar period and World War 2. The second volume, which should come out later this year, will cover the period from 1945 to 1956 and the topics of agriculture, housing, defense, and relations with the intelligentsia. The third volume will be devoted to international affairs.
I am a member of the team that prepares this edition of the memoirs for publication. The editor is Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev, who originally persuaded his retired father to tape record his memoirs and has devoted enormous effort over the years to their transcription, preservation, and publication. (2) The translator of the memoirs is George Shriver. I am responsible for notes, captions to the numerous photos, and appendices, including the translation of supplementary documents. Ann Helgeson created the maps.
As translator of the supplementary documents, let me draw attention to three that are of particular value:
* The History of the Creation and Publication of the Khrushchev Memoirs, 1967--1999: the fullest account yet, by Sergei Khrushchev (in Vol. 1)
* The Notebooks of Nina Petrovna, Khrushchev's wife, 1971--1984 (in Vol. 2)
* The Last Romantic, a long essay on Khrushchev's policies and ideas in the field of agriculture by the writer Anatoly Strelyany and drawing extensively on the tape-recorded reminiscences of Khrushchev's long-time aide for agriculture, Andrei Shevchenko (in Vol. 2)
Also of interest are:
* Khrushchev's memorandum to the Presidium of December 1959 on military reform; and
* "How Khrushchev Subdued America," a humorous account of Khrushchev's visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in the fall of 1960, based on the reminiscences of head of the KGB Ninth Directorate and Khrushchev's chief bodyguard, Colonel General Nikolai Zakharov. (3) This was the visit during which the famous shoe-banging incident is supposed to have occurred (see item 3 below).
I expect that this will be the definitive edition of the memoirs in English. It is the first COMPLETE edition in English. The first edition in English -- in fact, the first edition in any language -- was published in 1970 by Little, Brown and Company under the title Khrushchev Remembers. The text was selected from a smuggled Russian transcript, organized, translated, and edited by a young American student at Oxford University, Strobe Talbott. Talbott was later to rise to high diplomatic office in the administration of a president who had been his roommate at Oxford, a fellow by the name of Bill Clinton.
So this was an incomplete edition. Sergei was especially annoyed that most of his father's reminiscences about the war had been omitted. He also found some errors in the translation, although I think that the quality of the translation was pretty good on the whole.
This edition then became the basis for publication of the memoirs in several other languages, including -- strangely enough -- Russian! A Russian edition was prepared not for the Soviet public but for restricted circulation within the political elite. For this purpose the English edition was back-translated into Russian, despite the fact that the original typescript and sound tapes were by this time in the possession of the Central Committee, having been confiscated from Sergei by the KGB. Fortunately the KGB never discovered the spare copy that Sergei had entrusted to a friend's safekeeping.
In the late 1980s, under Gorbachev, it at last became possible to publish the Khrushchev memoirs openly in the USSR. The journal Voprosy istorii (Questions of History) published the memoirs in installments, completing the job in 1995. In 1997 the publishing house VAGRIUS put out a selective edition. Finally, in 1999, the Moscow News Publishing Company brought out a complete edition of the memoirs in Russian in four volumes under the title "Vremya, lyudi, vlast" (Time, People, Power). This edition has served as the main source for the current complete edition in English, although it was necessary to clarify certain passages by referring back to the tapes. (4)
NOTES
(1) Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev. Volume 1. Commissar (1918--1945). Edited by Sergei Khrushchev. 2004.
(2) Sergei Khrushchev is now based at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.
(3) To appear in Vol. 3. Originally published in Argumenty i fakty (2000, No. 52, p. 12).
(4) At my suggestion the material is being published in three volumes instead of four. The tapes are stored on CDs in the archive of the John Hay Library at Brown University.
KHRUSHCHEV'S VISIT TO BRITAIN: APPEAL FOR ASSISTANCE
In the spring of 1956 Khrushchev, together with a delegation that also included Bulganin and Academician Kurchatov, made a visit to Britain. I need to prepare notes to the chapter of the memoirs that deals with this visit. In several places Khrushchev cannot remember important details. For instance: he meets an influential figure in the Conservative Party but can't recall his name; he visits a university but can't remember which one. I need information that will enable me to clarify such details. Can anyone help?
HISTORY: KHRUSHCHEV
2. KHRUSHCHEV AS POPULIST
I start with an aspect of Khrushchev's public behavior that marks him out as unique not only among Soviet leaders but among politicians anywhere in the world -- his clowning. (1) Thus the writer Andrei Bitov recalls a newsreel in which Khrushchev "rolled along like a ball ahead of Marshal Tito (of Yugoslavia) and his beautiful wife." What is most remarkable here is not the rolling itself but Khrushchev's willingness to have such undignified behavior filmed and shown to the Soviet public. Or look at one of the photos from Khrushchev's 1959 trip to the US, captioned "Meeting with Ordinary Americans": there he is guffawing, his hand pressed against a man's protruding belly amid a crowd of laughing onlookers. (2)
Clowning had helped Khrushchev survive under Stalin, who valued him as a source of entertainment: Bitov mentions the occasions "when he entertained the Mustache with watermelon and a heel-tapping hopak" (Ukrainian folk dance). (3) What is harder to explain is why he continued clowning after Stalin died and he had risen to supreme power. I suppose that he just enjoyed it and no one dared insist that he cut it out.
Reactions to Khrushchev's antics varied. According to Bitov, they helped people relax and shed part of the heavy burden of fear that Stalin's terror had instilled in them. "We laughed in relief... It was the first time we'd been threatened with a corncob instead of the muzzle of a gun." Of course, there were many, especially though not only in the bureaucracy, who disapproved, feeling that by relinquishing his own dignity Khrushchev also harmed the dignity of the Soviet state. It was almost certainly a factor in his eventual downfall.
I conjecture that how a person felt about Khrushchev's buffoonery was a reflection of his or her personality type, i.e., democratic or authoritarian. For the buffoon, like the holy fool, has always been a symbol of the common people. You only have to think of the comic characters in Shakespeare's historical plays. Even the authoritarian personality finds it hard not to LIKE a person who makes him/her laugh, but liking does not imply respect. And a political leader needs respect.
So I view Khrushchev's clowning above all as an expression of his populism. He wanted ordinary people to see him as one of them and not as a different and superior kind of being. He was always talking about how in his youth he used to herd cows and work with metal. The fact that a worker from a peasant family could rise to be leader of a mighty state was for him the ultimate proof of the democratic nature of that state. (4) Moreover, for all the years he spent in the apparat he lovingly kept his old toolbox as a symbol of his essential inner identity. In coming FROM the people he resembled many of his colleagues, but in continuing to feel that he was OF the people he was highly atypical.
That is not to deny a large element of self-deception in Khrushchev's self-image as a man of the people, but that self-image did have a real impact on his policy making. Having immersed myself in a sea of words uttered or written by Khrushchev and individuals who were close to him, I believe that he did sincerely want the best for his people. He believed if not in government BY the people (he never advanced to that point) then at least in government FOR the people. In that regard he contrasted sharply both with Stalin, whose sole concern was with power, and with Brezhnev, whose dominant passion appears to have been for driving fast cars. (5)
Khrushchev's populism began to manifest itself in policy stances in the second half of the 1940s, while Stalin was still alive. My impression is that the experience of the war against fascism had stoked in him, as in so many others, long dormant embers of mental independence, conscience, and moral courage. Back in his Ukrainian bailiwick, he maneuvered adroitly to secure as much as possible of the grain that his people needed to survive the postwar famine. Then at the Central Committee plenum of February 1947 he angered Stalin by demanding abolition of the "commandment of the collective farmer" that gave state grain procurements priority over preservation of seed for the following year. He no longer collaborated so wholeheartedly in Stalin's purges as he had done in the 1930s, but tried to save endangered colleagues by transferring them to out of the way places where he hoped they would be forgotten. (6) He also told the secret police not to arrest people merely for complaining about consumer goods shortages. He thought people had a right to complain about such things.
One can trace the strand of populism is many of the policies that Khrushchev pursued when he was in power. Above all, he wanted to raise the people's standard of living. This was the major motive behind his unilateral reductions in armaments. (7) Another important example was his consistent prioritization of housing construction. Knowing how many urban families still had no apartment of their own, he rejected many projects that he considered inessential on the grounds that they would divert funds from housing. New "palaces" and other showy public buildings, revolving restaurants, subway systems for various cities (8) -- such things could wait. After he was ousted all these projects were given the go ahead and housing construction slowed. At the end of the Soviet era many people were still living in crowded communal apartments.
Sandwiched between Stalin and "the era of stagnation" (as Gorbachev was later to label the Brezhnev years), the Khrushchev period on the whole showed the Soviet system at its best (or, if you prefer, at its least bad). While the official mood of confidence and optimism was exaggerated, even to the point of absurdity ("our children will live under communism"), it was not wholly baseless. It was a time when life really was becoming palpably better for many millions of Soviet people. The improving conditions of life found reflection, inter alia, in the country's public health indicators. (9)
And yet the final judgment on Khrushchev of many Soviet people was that he had failed. He himself took the view that he had failed. Toward the end of his time in power he candidly declared before a large audience of officials that he had failed. Moreover, he was contemplating a public admission of failure followed by his resignation. The real purpose of the conspiracy to oust him, Strelyany suggests, was to prevent him resigning in this politically damaging fashion.
The crucial area that shaped this widely shared perception of failure was agriculture. Agriculture was the subject that Khrushchev knew and cared most about, even if (as Strelyany argues) his knowledge was superficial and unsystematic, that of the dilettante rather than the professional. And yet here too Khrushchev had set off to a good start: output shot up in the mid-1950s as he raised procurement prices, relieved the tax burden on the countryside, and relaxed restrictions on the private-plot sector. But then he proclaimed an ambitious goal -- to modernize and mechanize Soviet agriculture in order to supply the population with a high-protein diet ("overtaking America in meat and milk"). This he failed to do.
What is more, Khrushchev was responsible for a series of misconceived policy initiatives that caused great losses:
* He made the premature decision to abolish the machine-tractor stations, which had provided machinery to the collective and state farms. The farms were forced to buy the machines, though (as Shevchenko warned him) many could not afford to do so.
* He tried to re-house the rural population in new apartment blocks in "agro-cities" -- with mod cons but without garden plots or room for their domestic livestock. When his own village cousin wrote to complain that her roof was falling in, he sent Shevchenko, who offered her an apartment, but she refused to take it. Where was she going to keep her chickens? He had lost touch with the peasant mentality.
* Admiring the high corn yields of American agriculture, he imposed corn cultivation throughout most of the country, even in regions where the soil and climate were quite unsuitable for it. His obsession with corn won him the contemptuous sobriquet "kukuruzchik" (corn man, from kukuruza = corn).
Does it make sense to give so much weight to Khrushchev's personal qualities, as opposed to the inherent characteristics of the System, in assessing the developments of those years? No doubt the System set limits on what any leader could do. But it was a striking property of that very System that it metamorphosed in response to the style, approach, and character of successive leaders. The leader's image was magnified a thousand-fold; his voice reverberated through the giant structure. There was in effect a distinct variant of the System corresponding to each leader. So those personal qualities of Khrushchev mattered enormously. In a similar way, in the monarchies of olden times it mattered whether you had a "good king" or a "bad king." On balance, Khrushchev was a good king.
NOTES
(1) True, Yeltsin also liked to act the clown, but he did so in public only when very drunk. Clowning sober has quite a different meaning. Does anyone have any other counterexamples?
(2) Bitov's essay is a preface to Vol. 1 of the new edition of Khrushchev memoirs. The photo is in Vol. 2 of the Moscow News edition, and will be in Vol. 3 of the new English-language edition.
(3) For further discussion of how Khrushchev survived under Stalin despite his less than perfect compliance with the dictator's demands, see RAS No. 17 item 10.
(4) Of all Politburo or Presidium members between 1917 and 1971, 38 percent were children of manual workers. The corresponding figure for American presidents and cabinet members during between 1789 and 1934 is 5 percent.
(5) The best analysis of Brezhnev's psychology is in the biography of him by Roy Medvedev (Lichnost' i epokha).
(6) For an account of one such case, see RAS No. 23 item 11.
(7) See his memorandum on military reform.
(8) At that time only Moscow and Leningrad had subway systems.
(9) See the background briefing to the special issue on TB (RAS No. 21).
HISTORY: KHRUSHCHEV
3. DID HE BANG HIS SHOE?
On October 12, 1960, the United Nations General Assembly was discussing the abolition of the colonial system. It was during this session that Khrushchev supposedly banged his shoe on the table, thereby creating a world sensation.
A Filipino speaker had called the Soviet Union a concentration camp and was saying other things that upset Khrushchev, so he sought leave from the chairman, the Irish diplomat Frederick Henry Boland, to intervene "on a point of order." He raised his hand, then he stood up and raised his hand again, but Boland did not "notice" him and allowed the speaker to continue.
Khrushchev's bodyguard, Colonel General Nikolai Zakharov, describes what he thinks happened next:
"Then Khrushchev took off one of the light boots he was wearing and began to bang it on the table. He banged to a regular rhythm, like the pendulum of a metronome. That was the moment that entered world history as Khrushchev’s famous shoe. The conference hall of the United Nations had never seen its like before. A sensation was born right before my eyes."
That is the standard account of the incident. But did it actually happen this way? There are two witnesses who say it did not.
A UN employee who worked with the Soviet delegation, interviewed by Soviet journalist Ilya Shatunovsky, explained when and why Khrushchev had removed his shoe and why he was holding it in his hand:
"Khrushchev appeared in the hall after the other delegates. He went up to the heads of the delegations from the socialist countries and shook hands with them. The journalists ran after him, pushing one another out of the way. Microphones were held out to him from all sides. Lights flashed, camera shutters clicked. When Khrushchev was literally a single step away from his place, one of the zealous correspondents accidentally trod on his heel, and his shoe flew off. I quickly retrieved the shoe, wrapped it in a napkin, and when Khrushchev sat down a moment later surreptitiously handed him the bundle under the table. As you can see, there is very little space between the seat and the table. And being plump Khrushchev was unable to bend down to the floor to put on or take off a shoe. His belly was in the way. So he sat there, turning his shoe over in his hand under the table."
So Khrushchev did not take off his shoe deliberately in order to use it to express his anger. That, of course, does not exclude the possibility that he banged the table with it, but it shows that we have to treat the standard account with a certain skepticism.
I now call my second witness for the defense. New York Times journalist James Ferron claimed that he was there and saw everything with his own eyes. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Mr. Ferron that appeared in the October 5, 1997 issue of The New York Times:
"Q. Was that at the time of Khrushchev and the shoe incident?
A. I actually saw Khrushchev not bang his shoe. He never banged his shoe. He was sitting at his desk in the General Assembly, and they were banging their desks with their fists -- the communists and the representatives of the Third World countries -- because someone from the Philippines was speaking who was viewed as an American lackey. Khrushchev leaned over, took off a slip-on shoe, raised it and then waved it pseudo-menacingly and put it on his desk. The only pictures available were pictures of a seated Khrushchev with the shoe resting on the desk. There is no picture of him hitting the desk, because he never did it.
Q. How did the legend materialize that he banged the desk?
A. The Associated Press wrote the story that way. And that was the information The New York Times used."
And the report echoed through a thousand other media outlets. And everyone imagined they had actually seen it happen...
The UN employee does not deny that Khrushchev banged the shoe, but she does testify that he did not remove it deliberately. While sitting at the table Khrushchev was unable either to put on or to take off a shoe because his belly got in the way. Being rather obese myself, I can corroborate the force of this circumstance. While Mr. Ferron, conversely, thinks that Khrushchev did remove his shoe deliberately, he testifies that he never banged it but merely waved it in the air -- a much less offensive gesture, as I'm sure you'll agree.
So did he or didn't he? I leave the final judgment to you. I would only suggest that we'd better not rely on the virtual reality of the mass media for our historical facts.
POLITICS
4. WHY DO PEOPLE VOTE FOR PUTIN?
SOURCE. Henry E. Hale, Michael McFaul, and Timothy J. Colton, Putin and the "Delegative Democracy" Trap: Evidence from Russia's 2003-04 Elections, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 20 No. 4, October-December 2004, pp. 285-319
In December 2003, United Russia and its allies won an overwhelming victory in the Duma elections over both the communist and the liberal opposition. In March 2004, Putin captured 72 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election.
And yet the authors show that when Russians are asked their opinion of specific reforms introduced by Putin the proportions expressing approval are much smaller. According to a representative national survey conducted in April--May 2004, 32 percent support the creation of the federal districts, 31 percent like the law allowing private land ownership, and a mere 13 percent approve the flat 13-percent tax. What is more, the proportions of Putin voters approving these policies are not appreciably higher. (1) Even on the problem of Chechnya, where Putin's hard-line stance is supposed to be a big vote-winner, only 36 percent responded that "primarily force" was the answer while 56 percent chose the option that Putin has consistently rejected, i.e., "primarily negotiations." (2) The authors identify only one reform of Putin's that has the support of a (narrow) majority -- namely, the introduction of jury trials. (3)
When we turn to respondents' assessments of Putin's performance over the past four years in various areas, the picture is much the same. "Only 8 percent of Putin voters (N.B.) feared terrorists less than they did in 2000, 11 percent thought crime had declined, and 11 percent considered that corruption levels had fallen." Only in one area did a majority -- again a narrow one -- perceive an improvement: 55 percent of all voters and 59 percent of Putin voters believed that the Russian state had grown stronger.
But surely voters realized that the Russian economy has been on the upswing under Putin and rewarded him for that? Apparently not. A survey conducted over the winter of 2003--2004 shows a clear majority both of all voters and of United Russia voters refusing to acknowledge improvement in the economy:
* A mere 5 percent of all voters (6 percent of UR voters) agreed that "the Russian economy is in good shape." (4)
* 38 percent of all voters (45 percent of UR voters) agreed that "the Russian economy has improved over the last 12 months."
* 23 percent of all voters (27 percent of UR voters) agreed that "our family's economic situation has improved over the last 12 months."
Nevertheless, one in three of those who considered Putin's overall performance "bad though not very bad" voted for him.
How are we to reconcile all this with the evidence of Putin's landslide electoral victories? Why was support for Putin so much greater than support for his views or his perceived achievements? The authors suggest four plausible explanations:
Explanation No. 1 -- Prospective voting
Perhaps voters believe that Putin's party, United Russia, despite a lackluster performance to date, is more capable than other parties of dealing with the problems facing Russia -- that is, more likely to solve those problems in the future? The spring 2004 survey shows that a substantial minority of voters (31--43 percent, depending on the problem) and the majority of UR voters (56--67 percent) do take this view. (5) So prospective voting is a significant factor, although it provides only a partial explanation.
Explanation No. 2 -- The appeal of Putin's personality
The authors note that Putin has "a charisma of sorts, an ability to connect with voters on a personal level" that is not simply a product of media manipulation. A large majority of respondents attribute positive character traits to Putin: 96 percent see him as intelligent, 92 percent as strong, 87 percent as honest and trustworthy, and 79 percent as caring about ordinary people. These are much higher ratings than those of other politicians who receive similarly favorable media coverage, such as UR party leader Boris Gryzlov.
Explanation No. 3 -- Control over media, above all TV
For the large majority of voters (91 percent) the media are the most important source of information about politics, and for an almost equally large majority (87 percent) the most important media source is TV. Putin's steadily increasing domination of the mainstream media, and especially government control of TV programming, is therefore a crucial asset.
Explanation No. 4 -- The intimidation effect
Finally, the authors argue that the Kremlin's growing formal and informal power over the media, the polity, and the economy, and the demonstrations of its willingness and ability to wield this power against opponents, create a powerful intimidation effect. Afraid of ending up on the receiving end, potential opponents fall in line. One result has been a narrowing of the range of real choice on offer to the electorate as the best-known opposition candidates (Zyuganov, Yavlinsky) withdraw from the contest.
NOTES
(1) 34, 34, and 14 percent respectively.
(2) The corresponding figures for United Russia voters were virtually identical: 37 and 56.
(3) Supported by 58 percent of all voters and by 59 percent of Putin voters.
(4) Just one respondent was willing to agree that the Russian economy was "in very good shape"!
(5) Respondents were asked this question with respect to five problems: providing social guarantees, improving the economy, safeguarding human rights and democratic freedoms, promoting Russia's international interests, and combating crime and corruption.
POLITICS
5. THE POLITICS OF REGIONAL ENLARGEMENT
SOURCE. J. Paul Goode, The Push for Regional Enlargement in Putin's Russia, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 20 No. 3, July-September 2004, pp. 219-257
The desirability and practicality of merging Russia's regions into a smaller number of larger units has been a recurrent topic of discussion in the post-Soviet period. Professor Goode (University of Oklahoma) surveys the perspectives of various political actors on the issue and examines in detail the two cases in which the process of enlargement is most advanced:
* the fusion of Perm Province with the Komi-Permyat Autonomous District (Okrug) to form Perm Territory (krai), which is due to come into existence on December 1, 2005
* the fusion of Tyumen Province with the Khanty-Mansy and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous districts
Different actors have promoted enlargement schemes at various times for quite different and even opposed motives. Such ideas did not receive favor from Yeltsin. While initially undecided, Putin has become more encouraging, perhaps because having taken effective measures to bring the regions under central control he is now less afraid of the disintegrative potential of enlargement. At the end of 2000 a federal law was adopted to establish a procedure for enlargement, subject to referendums in the regions involved and the approval of the federal legislature. (1)
In the 1990s, some ambitious governors of "Russian" provinces sought to merge a number of such provinces into new "Russian" regional republics that would enjoy equal status with the "ethnic" republics. (2) Best known was the scheme of Sverdlovsk governor Eduard Rossel for a Urals Republic. Other proposals were for a South Russian Republic, a Far Eastern Republic, (3) and a Siberian Republic. A common view was that "Siberian Accord" and other interregional economic associations might provide a framework for regional enlargement. (4)
A very specific type of regional enlargement is the unification of what the author calls the "mini-federations." Nine of Russia's ten autonomous districts possess a dual status: they are simultaneously parts of a neighboring province or territory and federal subjects in their own right. (5) Schemes to do away with this anomaly by absorbing such autonomous districts into the "parent" province or territory, as in the cases of Perm and Tyumen, have very broad support. Another likely prospect is the absorption of the Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous District by Irkutsk province.
Regional enlargement schemes of other types -- for example, the amalgamation of Kostroma and Ivanovo provinces with Yaroslavl province proposed by Yaroslavl governor Anatoly Lisitsyn -- have encountered much more intense opposition. The most common rationale for schemes of this kind is a fiscal one. The burden of "debtor" regions on the federal budget is to be relieved by merging them with "creditor" regions to form new units that will not need federal subsidies. It is also argued that enlargement will facilitate the administration of federal programs and supersede territorial disputes between the existing regions.
In principle, the process of regional enlargement could be used to get rid of the ethnic republics and their power elites. However, it is highly doubtful that anything that risky will be attempted. On the other hand, there are enlargement schemes that would actually enhance the position of certain ethnocratic elites by bringing related titular groups together into larger ethnic republics. An example is the idea of merging Tatarstan with Bashkortostan, which finds some favor among Tatar (but not Bashkir!) nationalists.
NOTES
(1) Federal Law No. 6-FZ of December 17, 2001. As an act of regional enlargement is a constitutional change, it requires (in accordance with Article 108 of the Constitution) the approval of two-thirds of the Duma and three-quarters of the Federation Council.
(2) The "Russian" provinces and territories have always resented the greater constitutional powers of the "ethnic" republics. In recent years the idea of combining groups of "Russian" provinces into republics has been revived by Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev.
(3) A formally independent Far Eastern Republic existed briefly as a buffer state under Lenin.
(4) There were eight such associations. For a discussion of options for amalgamating regions in Siberia, see RAS No. 16 item 2.
(5) The exception is Chukotka Autonomous District.
LAW
6. HATE CRIMES
SOURCES
(A) Testimony of Nickolai Butkevich, Research and Advocacy Director, Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ), Before the USCIRF Hearing "Russia: Religious Communities, Extremist Movements, and the State" February 7, 2005
(B) Ugolovny kodeks RSFSR (Rossii) [Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Russia)], Saratov: Vsesoyuznaya yuridicheskaya firma "KONTRAKT," 1992
(C) Statutes & Decisions: The Laws of the USSR and Its Successor States (M.E. Sharpe), Vol. 39 Nos. 4--6, July--December 2003, Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
The numbers of vicious and often murderous racist assaults against members of ethnic minorities continue to grow. (1) Although the term "hate crime" does not appear in Russian criminal law, there are provisions in the Criminal Code that could be applied specially in cases of racist assault. In practice, however, use is rarely made of these provisions. Why is this so?
The old Russian criminal code, dating back to Soviet times, contained Article 74, entitled "Violation of Ethnic or Racial Equality." It prohibited "deliberate acts aimed at inciting ethnic or racial enmity or hatred or at denigrating ethnic honor and dignity." (2) It is widely assumed that this Article targeted hate speech alone, but in fact it specified increased penalties if "violence, deception, or threats" were involved or if the acts were committed by a group of persons or by an official. (3)
The corresponding Article in the reformed code that was introduced in the mid-1990s is Article 282, entitled "Incitement of Hatred or Enmity or Denigration of Human Dignity." It prohibits "acts aimed at inciting hatred or enmity or at denigrating the dignity of a person or group of people on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, language, origin, or attitude toward religion, or any kind of social group, committed publicly or using the mass media." (4) Besides the expansion in the types of groups protected, there are two significant changes here compared to the old Article 74:
* It is made clearer that the law is targeted specifically at public hate speech, although there is still provision for increased penalties if the acts are committed "with the threat or use of force" or by an official or "an organized group." (5) However, the introduction of the term "organized group" (rather than simply "group") may limit the application of this provision. A gang of skinheads might not be considered sufficiently "organized," especially if it appears to take shape spontaneously on the street.
* The word "deliberate" (in "deliberate acts aimed at inciting etc.") has been deleted. According to Butkevich, this was done with a view to removing the requirement to prove intent, which is usually extremely difficult. "Nevertheless, some prosecutors continue to cite this apparently non-existent problem in their justification for not bringing charges under Article 282, though this excuse is used less frequently than in the past" (A). In my opinion, deleting "deliberate" does not suffice to eliminate the problem because intent is still implicit in the expression "aimed at." It is necessary to rephrase the corpus (definition) of the crime to specify acts that may reasonably be supposed to incite hatred etc.
It is also possible to prosecute hate crimes under Articles 105 (Homicide), 111 (Deliberate Infliction of Grave Harm to Health), and 112 (Deliberate Infliction of Harm of Medium Gravity to Health). If any of these crimes is "committed for reasons of ethnic, racial, or religious hatred or enmity or blood feud," this counts as an aggravating circumstance that increases penalties as follows:
-- for homicide: from 6--15 years to 8--20 years or life imprisonment or death
-- for grave harm: from 2--8 years to 3--10 years
-- for medium harm: from 0--3 years to 0--5 years (6)
In the past hate crimes were not prosecuted under these Articles. Often they were classified merely as hooliganism or vandalism. Butkevich mentions six cases of application of these Articles since 2002, in two of which charges were dropped.
NOTES
(1) For more on skinheads, see RAS No. 22 item 1. They also frequently attack the homeless.
(2) Taken from (B). I have omitted the continuation: "or at directly or indirectly curtailing the rights of citizens or at establishing direct or indirect advantages for them on the basis of racial or ethnic affiliation."
(3) In the absence of aggravating circumstances, the penalty was up to 3 years' deprivation of freedom or a fine of up to 2,000 rubles. If violence, deception, or threats were involved or if the perpetrator was an official, the maximum penalty was 5 years or a fine of 5,000 rubles. If the acts led to people's deaths or "other grave consequences" or if they were committed by a group, a sentence of 10 years could be imposed.
(4) Taken from (C).
(5) The maximum sentence is increased from 2 to 5 years and the maximum fine from 300,000 to 500,000 rubles. There is also now the option of imposing other kinds of penalties besides imprisonment and fines: "deprivation of the right to occupy specific positions or engage in specific activities" for a certain period, and a period of "compulsory" or "corrective" work (without imprisonment).
(6) Taken from (C). The corresponding provision in the old criminal code specified only "blood feud" as an aggravating circumstance. Blood feuds remain a problem in the Caucasus.
DEMOGRAPHY
7. ASSESSING THE 2002 RUSSIAN POPULATION CENSUS
SOURCE. Yoshiko M. Herrera, The 2002 Russian Census: Institutional Reform at Goskomstat, Post-Soviet Affairs, 2004, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 350-86
Professor Herrera (Harvard University) assesses the 2002 Russian population census on four criteria:
* Data priorities and content. To what extent did the information collected correspond to the needs of government and society?
* Data reliability. How objective and pertinent were the categories used? Was the institutional and legal framework conducive to well-coordinated and competent conduct of the census?
* Data accessibility. What data were made publicly accessible?
* Methodological transparency. How much information was made available on the methods used to collect and process data and on the actual conduct of the census?
Since the late 1980s, the State Committee for Statistics, known for short as Goskomstat, (1) has consulted widely with foreign and international institutions (including the US Bureau of the Census) and also with Russian social scientists and other state agencies. Largely thanks to this interaction and to extensive debate within Goskomstat, the author concludes, "the content and categories of the 2002 census did meet scholarly and international standards as well as the needs of the Russian government and society."
Goskomstat has also made public a great deal of information on the methods used and the practical problems of organizing and conducting the census, although it has not issued adequate explanations of certain apparent anomalies in the data. The assessment of data accessibility is also cautiously positive; the caution arises from the fact that not all of the 14 volumes of data promised have yet been published.
The picture regarding data reliability is more mixed. Compared to previous Soviet censuses, there were improvements in the treatment of such difficult categories as language (abandonment of the highly ambiguous concept of "native language") and ethnic affiliation, which was defined clearly in terms of the respondent's own self-perception. (2) Except in a few localities, (3) Professor Herrera found no evidence of political interference in the census process.
But there were serious organizational problems. In particular, enumerators, who were mainly students, were poorly paid, hired only just before the start of census work, and consequently inadequately trained. As a result, they often misunderstood the instructions, some of which were rather confusing (for instance, on how to deal with temporary residents). To make matters worse, some instructions were even changed at the very last minute by e-mail circular. (4)
The legal framework for the census was inadequate. In some respects, this deficiency was overcome by direct support for Goskomstat from President Putin. Specifically, this sufficed to ensure needed assistance from other federal state agencies and from regional and local government. However, no legal basis could be found to make participation in the census compulsory. As media coverage of the census did not inspire a high level of public trust, (5) Goskomstat had to cope with a substantial rate of non-response. Regional Goskomstat officials responded by resorting to various makeshifts that undermined the methodological integrity of the census. In many places the census period was extended. The worst malpractice was the combined use of census data and administrative records of uncertain reliability, especially residential records. One region where it is thought that reliance on out-of-date residential records may have significantly distorted the census count is Chechnya. (6)
While in certain important respects, such as data accessibility, methodological transparency, and the treatment of language and ethnicity, the Russian census of 2002 was clearly an improvement over past Soviet censuses, I am left with the overall impression that the Soviet censuses were MUCH better prepared and organized. Thus, "for the 1989 census there were three years of preparation and training, and the interview instrument was finished a year in advance." Most crucially, Soviet-era enumerators were more mature and experienced people as well as much better trained. Many worked in successive censuses. They must have done a much better job.
The importance of this point is somewhat obscured by the ideological orthodoxy of the author's introduction and conclusion, where she frames the issue as: to what extent has the first post-Soviet Russian census overcome the Soviet legacy (by prior assumption a negative one)? That is no less arbitrary than framing the issue as: how much of the Soviet achievement in this field has been lost? I am reminded of the classical structure of Soviet academic works before perestroika, with their glaring disconnects between ideologically framed introduction, objective analysis in the middle, and ideologically framed conclusion.
NOTES
(1) Renamed in 2004 the Federal Service for Statistics.
(2) People were free to specify their ethnic affiliation in any way they liked. Initial coding was based on a list of almost 900 ethnonyms (including variant spellings and pronunciations), compiled by "constructivist anthropologists" at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, for most purposes the data were aggregated into 120-150 groups. This approach aroused the opposition of regional leaders in Tatarstan and Dagestan. See RAS No. 6 item 10.
(3) In some ethnic republics, local leaders encouraged as many people as possible to declare their affiliation with the titular ethnic group.
(4) For more on these problems, see RAS No. 18 item 5.
(5) In the author's opinion, media coverage was not very fair or objective: most Goskomstat officials are honest professionals and deserve the public's trust.
(6) See RAS No. 19 item 5.
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD
8. MOSCOW'S REALPOLITIK
SOURCE. Dmitry Trenin, Moscow's Realpolitik. First published in Nezavisimaya gazeta, February 9, 2004. Also on http://www.carnegie.ru
The author, a foreign policy analyst who is currently deputy director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, outlines Russia's world strategy as it has taken shape under Putin.
While much less powerful than the USSR, Russia remains a big player on the world scene. "Even in its current weakened position, Russia conceives of itself as an [independent] Great Power." It "cannot be and does not want to be integrated into the structures of the expanded West." The option of Russia becoming "a junior partner of the United States and a minor member of the Western community" has been rejected.
Russia's ruling elite are guided by geopolitics and -- above all else -- geo-economics. At the same time, they recognize that military power remains important. However, ideology and social values are NOT assigned any significant role.
There is no longer any expectation that the West will help Russia. Relations with the West may provide an additional input into the country's economic modernization, but are central neither to economic strategy nor to ideological legitimacy.
Trenin refers to "the Americans" as "partners," but they are partners who "respect only the strong." Therefore Russia still needs its nuclear missiles. "Confrontation with the US is dangerous and unprofitable for Russia, but alliance based on equal rights is also impossible. There can be only a flexible combination of limited partnership and local rivalry." The formulation is very reminiscent of the way that Soviet ideologists defined "detente" in the mid- to late 1970s, except for the fact that the ideological wrapping has been removed.
The author sees no possibility of really close relations with either the European Union or China. Russia can never join the EU, not just because it is poor and backward but simply because it is too big. As for relations with China, they should merely be "correct."
The absence of really close relations with any other power does not mean a retreat into isolationism. "In the future the Kremlin expects Russia to take a 'hands-on' role in global management" through its membership in the United Nations Security Council and the G-8. For the time being, however, Russia has been reduced to a regional power with its most essential interests concentrated in the post-Soviet region.
With the sole possible exception of Belarus, it is assumed that the post-Soviet states will retain their sovereignty. Over the next 20--25 years, Russia will seek to integrate these states into a "Russian-led powerhouse" -- not by counterproductive "imperialist" methods but by patient diplomacy and by strengthening economic ties, especially through investment.
On this basis Russia will secure their "political loyalty." This means "engagement in a Moscow-led security system and exclusion of the predominant influence of third parties - the United States, the EU, China, Turkey." What we have here is an updated and demilitarized version of the "Migranyan doctrine" of the early 1990s.
Unfortunately, the US has refused to "recognize Moscow's 'special interests' in the post-Soviet space." But Russia will not be deterred by this. Friction and rivalry with the US over the region is therefore inevitable, but it is hoped that to some extent the US will be distracted by its many other foreign policy concerns.
Similarly, Trenin expects friction with the EU, especially over Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and the Southern Caucasus. He also sees the potential for friction with China over Central Asia, but believes that China is unlikely to oppose the consolidation of Russian influence there if Russia continues to assist China in such matters as the provision of energy and armaments.
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD
9. FURTHER ON THE UKRAINIAN ELECTIONS
My comments in connection with Vladimir Zlenko's analysis of the Ukrainian elections as a gangsters' quarrel (RAS No. 28 item 7) drew an impassioned response from Matthew Maly.
On the danger of civil war, Maly observed that "there were indeed a lot of weapons stored in Kiev and a lot of people willing and able to fight, but there was no fighting and on the one day when an armed assault was scheduled it did not take place." We now know that the heads of the security services refused to suppress the demonstrations by force.
To my point that nonstop mass protests threaten public health due to the lack of toilet facilities for the demonstrators, Maly replied: "No, this is bullshit. (1) My office is a five-minute walk from Independence Square. There were toilet facilities. There also were hundreds of thousands of people who donated blankets, food, rooms, and money, served meals, and were ready to fight and die." Would anyone else care to comment?
Maly also took the view that the fight for freedom justifies harm done to public health (as in the war against Nazism). That brings us back to Zlenko's question: were the demonstrators really fighting for freedom, not only subjectively but also objectively? Let's wait a while before making that judgement.
At my invitation Maly contributed his own analysis of the Ukrainian elections (below).
NOTE
(1) I didn't have bullshit in mind, but rather the human kind.
[10.] UKRAINE'S DEFINING MOMENT
Matthew Maly,
http://matthew-maly.ru
I was born in 1958 in Moscow, USSR. At 15, I was an ordinary Jewish math genius, doing nothing but solving math problems my every waking moment. And then one day I went to a Woodstock-style rock concert, the first and the only such concert I have ever attended. I was away from home for just one night. I did not drink, did not take drugs, did not have sex just observed the scene and listened to the music. When I came back, I could not bear to look at my Linear Algebra textbook: I had realized I was supposed to have a life. I came back an entirely different person. First, I quit the School for Math Geniuses I was attending. Then I left home and moved in with some hippies. And then I left the USSR and came to America. I have lived 16500 days so far, but only one day really mattered: the day I attended that rock concert and decided to have a life. A song called “Juke Box Hero” by Foreigner is about me as it starts with these words: “He heard one guitar, just blew him away”.
I hope that you, too, had this life-changing moment, a moment when you realized what life was all about, a day profoundly different from all other days. Sometimes entire countries have such moments, and recently it happened in Ukraine. Ukraine was a country of fifty million starving, downtrodden slaves whose idea of a good day was to not go to bed hungry. And then they had a presidential election. The candidate of power ran under a convincing, snappy slogan, “Vote for me, you scum”; the opposition candidate, nowhere to be seen, squeaked out “I exist”. As a professional in these matters, I was convinced that the candidate of power had an excellent slogan that would assure his victory: to be a successful shepherd, all you need is a long stick and a few angry shepherd dogs.
And then, unpredictably, the people just snapped. In one day, the reddest letter day of Ukraine’s entire 1000 years of recorded history, 500,000 people gathered on the central square of Kiev to sing their national anthem. Thanks to TV, millions of other Ukrainians were crying, thanking God for having lived to see this day. In God’s ranking of anthems, the Ukrainian anthem immediately took the third place, right after the Israeli and the Polish one. Europe grew by one state. Opposition leader, Victor Yushchenko, gained the status of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and John Lennon all rolled into one. A Ukrainian rap song formulated the issue of the day with the greatest precision: “We are no cattle, no billy-goats, we are Ukraine’s daughters and sons”. Ukrainians woke up a nation, unable to believe that in a far distant past of 24 hours ago they really were a herd of slaves.
On Sunday, Ukrainians are going to the polls. The question they will be polled on is formulated as follows: “Would you rather make love to a Hollywood star of your choice or clean a stinking pigsty?” Since not everyone is ready to pick the first option, I expect a 60:40 victory of Yushchenko, who will become a new President of an entirely new, very proud and hopeful state that will keep the name of Ukraine but will have an entirely different substance.
CORRESPONDENCE ON MAT (see RAS No. 28 item 2)
From Sergey Sergeyev
[Concerning the relative frequency of different Russian surnames] Almost all papers on Russian surnames offer statistics. Every city maintains its own statistics. At a certain period of my interest "Kuznetsov" and not "Ivanov" was the most common name. The classic work is the book by the emigre Unbegaun (Oxford University Press plus a Russian edition), who as I recall gave data for prerevolutionary St. Petersburg.
My current experience of communication in Russia shows that females use f--- words almost as well as males. Sometimes Russians hesitate to use them at the first moment of gender communication, but freely use them with known persons. It's the same as with Americans or Germans. Certainly Russian f--- words do not have the same place in official communications as English f--- words have in movies and life. Street language is still a taboo, but some Russian-English dictionaries include it. On the other hand, one popular Soviet dictionary (Muller?) translates "f---ing" as "devils."
My response
So how widespread IS the use of mat among women? It's another point on which I've been receiving conflicting signals. Would anyone else care to comment?
From Ryan Kreider
In your supplementary report on Russian mat, you noted that you had not seen mat in any dictionaries. There is a very good dictionary published by Barron's entitled, "Russian Slang & Colloquial Expressions: Approximately 4500 Words and their Popular Meanings That You Won't Find in Standard Russian-English Dictionaries." The co-editors (as of 1995) are Vladimir Shlyahkov, Senior Lecturer in Russian at the Pushkin Institute of Russian Language in Moscow and Eve Adler, Chair of the Classics Department at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. The issue I have was pulished in 1995 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
I think you'll find that this dictionary will have just about anything you're looking for in Russian slang and mat.
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