Russia: Other Points of View

Citizen Diplomacy Travel begins again -- June 2015

Email begun on June 3, 2015

Dear Friends,

The relations between the two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the U.S., deteriorated so rapidly during the Ukraine build-up to war in 2014 that it seemed to us critical to try to rebuild citizen diplomacy again –– even though this attempt feels like David and Goliath with the slingshot.

Our 22 Americans from 15 states (and one from South Africa) came together to travel to Russia May 30 through June 15. Our goal?  To learn how Russian citizens perceive the situations in Ukraine, Crimea and the Washington-based economic sanctions they are now under. We wanted to get clarifying information from them, to share our views with them, and to examine how to begin new efforts to break through the existing barriers between our two countries. 

Our non-traditional travel had no tour guides, no tour buses, no palaces, no concerts, no normal rounds of canned meetings.  Fortunately CCI has sufficient connections across Russia to organize meetings with ordinary Russian business people, journalists, professionals, university students and yes, Russia's venerated TV anchor over the past 40 years, Vladimir Pozner with whom we spent an evening in Moscow. 

No other country has been so persistently maligned in US mainstream media (MSM) over the past decade as has Russia; this demonization has been initiated by a thin segment of Washington's current policy makers and America's compliant MSM. It is said to have started in 2000 when Yeltsin turned over the reigns of the "new" Russia to then unknown Vladimir Putin.  I was told by a State Department diplomat that on that very day when it was announced that VV Putin would likely be Russia's next president, "The knives were drawn."  Actually I think it was even earlier in 1990, when Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Brzezinski, et al, came up with "The Wolfowitz Doctrine." 

TANDEM 2.0: ITS NATURE, ORIGINS, AND CLOUDY FUTURE

by Gordon M. Hahn

Much has been written about the ‘death of the tandem’ of Vladimir Putin and Dmitrii Medvedev since they switched offices in the Kremlin.  Although analyzing the tandem has been akin to reading the tea leaves of Soviet politics in the era of ‘Kremlinology’, it is worthwhile examining whether the tandem still exists and what the nature of the relationship between Russia’s president and its prime minister are under the new configuration of power.

Although the tandem 2.0 is different from the tandem 1.0, it seems there is more than enough evidence suggesting the tandem survives and reason therefore to hypothesize about its political basis.  I have addressed on ROPV and elsewhere the disagreements over specific policies as well as the differences in general political orientation between the tandem’s two halves.  Suffice it to say here that Medvedev is more laissez faire in economics – having even referred to the ‘new’ conservatism of Reagan and Thatcher as models – and more pluralist, decentralized, and society-oriented in politics. Putin is more of a Russian “statist” and traditionalist (rather than socialist bent) preferring a strong state over both the polity and the economy.  Medvedev is more Western and more inclined to support Western positions in foreign policy; Putin decidedly ‘not so much.’

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Syria et al. Whenever something horrible happens in the world that Western governments and media outlets actually notice, we find two different reactions from Moscow and Washington. Moscow confines itself to anodyne statements about constitutional agreement, peace and so forth – admirable sentiments which do nothing. Washington, on the other hand, feels it has to pick a side and blame those that don’t. US media outlets either create this judgement or follow along (which comes first?). Washington then accuses Moscow (and others) of preventing it “doing something”; the media picks up this line and fills up with stories (many of which don’t prove to be true: this one again, for example). When the crisis ends, interest and coverage do too. The collective memory is wiped clean and attention moves to the next CNN crisis. Since the end of the Cold War I recall four of these “humanitarian interventions” that exemplify this pattern. No one today ever mentions Somalia (1992) or Haiti (1994); the first being an utter disaster and the second ineffective. As to Kosovo (1999) we never heard about the KLA and organ harvesting at the time or much else about the people NATO put into power today; as to Libya (2011) mention of gunmen fighting it out or knock-on effects in Chad or Mali stays far in the back pages. The reality is that these “humanitarian interventions” aren’t such big successes that anyone should lightly proceed to the next one. So, if Putin “lectured” Obama, whose knowledge of the world is a bit shaky, I have some sympathy with him. Their bland joint statement here.

PERESTROIKA 2.0 AS DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION

COMMENTARY

by Gordon M. Hahn

Recent events raise hopes for regime transformation in Russia.  For the past four years Russia has been undergoing a very gradual liberalization that has been much like an iceberg melting.  The big question is how and what kind of transformation it will be.  A country’s form of rule can be transformed in several ways, and can produce democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian, or hybrid (soft authoritarian or weak democratic) outcomes.  Historically, there are two basic kinds of internally-driven regime change: revolution and transition.  These transitions, as a rule, are more likely to produce democratic outcomes than revolutions.

Revolutions from below are led by elements within society.  Opposition forces seize power––eschewing, destroying, and replacing the old order’s leaders and institutions.  Revolutions from below can be peaceful, as in Czeckoslovakia in 1989 and the Phillippines in the 1990s, or they can be violent as they were in France at the end of the 18th century, also in Russia and China during the first half of the 20th century.  Violent revolutions from below rarely produce democracy.  Peaceful ones often do.    Revolutions from above, however, can be led by state actors who take control of some state institutions legally, but then use them against other state actors (illegally or extra-constititonally) in order to dismantle some of the old order’s state institutions and replace with them with new ones to enact a new form of rule.   Whether military-led (as in the Meiji era in Japan, Ataturk’s Turkey, or Nasser’s Egypt) or civilian-led (as in Russia’s revolution from above led by Soviet party and state bureaucrats against the CPSU and Soviet state apparati), revolutions from above tend to produce authoritarian regimes or weak democracies.   

IS THE TANDEM RUNNING OUT OF TIME? RUSSIA - TOWARDS ANOTHER REVOLUTIONARY MOMENT?

COMMENTARY

by Gordon M. Hahn

Is Russia’s ruling tandem and its strategy of gradual reforms short on time?  Is Russia inching towards another revolutionary moment?  Could be.  Revolutions typically begin as reforms and develop over long periods of time, in stages and waves.  For example, Russia’s early 20^th century revolution began in the 1860s and went through several stages before being hijacked by the Bolshevik coup in 1917.  Even after that a four-year long civil war was needed to settle the issue.  As in the late Soviet period that ended with Boris Yeltsin’s revolution from above, the first Russian revolution included several periods of limited reforms and two revolutionary crises:  one in 1905 and another a full 12 years later.

In the late 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev began radical reforms of the decayed totalitarian Soviet system.  Those reforms developed such that by 1991 they could have ended in revolution from below or a transition to democracy, but instead a peaceful revolution from below led by state bureaucrats took the lead in destroying what was left of the Soviet Party-state and constructing the new post-Soviet Russia. 

Russian President Boris Yeltsin demobilized civil society and failed to institutionalize democracy.  His successor Vladimir Putin sought to address the chaos by restoring elements of authoritarianism, emphasizing state development rather than civil society or democratic development.  As we have covered in some detail, since the onset of Dmitrii Medvedev’s presidency, a new stage of reforms has begun, reflected by a gradual thaw or liberalization of domestic and foreign policy: a gradual, more cautious Perestroika 2.0.  However, there are real limits to the thaw that risk another period of instability and regime transformation.

MEDVEDEV MAKES MORE PROGRESS ON JUDICIAL REFORM

COMMENTARY

By Gordon M. Hahn

The Russian court’s guilty verdict in the embezzlement case against Mikhail Khodorkovskii and Platon Lebedev has received the undivided attention of the U.S. mainstream media and is held up as the rule when it comes to Russia’s albeit less than independent or impartial judicial system.  But the media’s singular focus on this case is a smokescreen that allows them to suppress news about the long-term, potentially democratizing thaw that emerged under President Dmitrii Medvedev, as we predicted 38 months ago. 

The trial and conviction of Khodorkovskii and Lebedev is unfortunately a long-standing process that predates the new liberalization process, and therefore it cannot constitute evidence that nothing has changed.  It is the continuation of an old policy; one, moreover, that also may change, should Medvedev decide to grant one or both of them amnesty.  The prosecution of Khodorkovskii, therefore, is neither dispositive of, nor even pertinent to the question as to whether there has been any progress in liberalizing Russia’s judicial system.  What is relevant to, and dispositive of this question would be signs of greater degrees of judicial independence, more decisions that find in favor of average citizens filing against the state or the authorities, and decisions that expand the scope of citizens’ rights and reduce that of the state’s arbitrariness and the authorities’ impunity.  In the past, we have detailed some of Medvedev’s earlier steps in reforming the judicial system (Gordon M. Hahn, “Medvedev’s Judicial Reforms – Don’t Pre-Judge,” Russia – Other Points of View, 18 May 2009).

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Grain exports. When I was in Russia in the early 1990s I visited several farms. In my travels I don’t recall ever seeing a field that was being used for anything except grazing for a scrawny cow or two. I spoke to Russians and Westerners, more knowledgeable than I, who had seen farms; everyone agreed that the situation was, in a word, hopeless. At that time it was said that Russia imported half its food. Something has happened. Last year, with the bad summer, Russia halted grain exports and the world price went up. Exports have just been resumed (perhaps 15 million tonnes out of a total harvest expected to be about 85) and prices went down. Somehow the desperate situation of the 1990s has turned around and Russia is an important grain exporter for the first time since when? a century ago? In the 1990s, the idea of Russia becoming an major food exporter would have been utterly unimaginable. I am not aware of any coverage of this and I would love to see some. Private farming? A restructuring of the decayed remnants of state and collective farms? New land? What? Away from the everlasting barren speculation of neo-Kremlinology there are real stories to cover.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

The next phase. Medvedev laid out to the government budget policy for the next three years. The key words are: modernise, competitive, growth, private initiative, innovation, effective, high quality, privatising, transparency, decentralisation. A working group on decentralising power has been set up. Read the speech, don’t read about it. I saw this coming four years ago (Sitrep 20061109: “Putin can name his successor and, one assumes, that if he names only one, that one will be as much in his mould as he can ensure. But that successor will have to confront the task of lifting growth to the next level, making it self-sustaining and not dependent on the world price of oil. The only way to do this is to allow it to happen: the government can encourage, it can create conditions, but it cannot do the lifting itself; only individual Russians can push economic growth to the next level. And here he will run into one of Putin’s legacies, which is Putin’s tendency, when there is a problem, to centralise control into an office next to his. But Russia is too big, too diverse and too untidy to be neatly run from the big corner office in the Kremlin. Putin’s successor will have to start to decentralise or watch Russia’s economic takeoff sag back onto the runway”). All this, Phase II of The Plan, was delayed a year or so by two unexpected events: the war in Ossetia and the international financial crisis.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Modernisation.  On Friday Medvedev made a speech about modernisation to the St Petersburg Economic Forum. Those who believe that this program has already failed, or that the only question in Russia is the imaginary Medvedev-Putin feud/power struggle won’t be interested but it’s worth reading. Generalities for the most part, but he is the President and he was giving a strategic message. A message we are now familiar with: “Modernisation is the only way to address the many issues before us”; that progress is real but still small: “They are small fruits, but they are there.” As to state control of certain sectors: “I want to state loud and clear here that we are not building state capitalism. Yes, there was a point in our development when we increased the state’s share in the economy, but this was an unavoidable step and in many ways necessary in order to stabilise the situation after the chaos of the 1990s, and re-establish basic order. That avenue has exhausted its potential now… [he describes problems with state control: state interests always dominate, the greater possibility of corruption and poor management] … This economic model jeopardises the country’s future. It is not my choice. My choice is different. Private business and private investment should dominate in the Russian economy. The state must protect the choice and assets of those who consciously decide to risk their money and reputation. We need to give them the right to make mistakes, and opportunities for drive and development.” As to specifics he spoke of more judicial independence and, as ever, corruption. He does understand what must be done as well as how difficult it will be. But he is right – as Belarus is showing – that there is no alternative. And, I again stress that this is the “Putin program” too: there was much use of “modern” in his 2005 and 2007 Federal Assembly addresses; “it’s no longer possible to survive and be competitive without modernisation” (2010). And so on. All part of The Plan.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Police Reform. According to the Minister, one third of the top police officers did not survive the screening and have been dismissed – 119 of 335. That is not a trivial percentage and to my mind shows the effort is real. The idea was that the senior officers would be vetted by the Presidential Administration and juniors by the seniors – perhaps it would have been smarter to wait until the seniors’ vetting was over before beginning the juniors. But the effort isn’t over yet.

Corruption. It is almost a cliché in certain circles that Medvedev’s struggle against corruption has failed. Readers are invited, however, to consider this account of a successful effort to stop (corrupt) markups in medical equipment prices. That’s not been a failure. And, by the way, as to the other cliché that anti-corruption is Medvedev’s thing (and by implication not Putin’s), here’s Putin three years ago: asked “Which of Russia’s problems have you found the most wearying and difficult to resolve over these last eight years?”, he answered “Corruption”. Same program, different phase.