Paul Goble
Vienna, April 12 – The controversy over whether Stalin’s portraits will appear during the commemoration of the 65th anniversary of Victory Day is distracting attention from the reality that a military parade in Red Square represents “the triumph of the Stalinist type of rule” and the way in which the Russian people themselves actually celebrated that victory.
In an essay on Grani.ru, Irina Pavlova says that the appearance of Stalin’s portraits represents the results of an official effort launched in 2005 “under the slogan ‘Return Stalin to the Victory,’” but that even the elimination of the portraits would not represent the defeat of that campaign (grani.ru/opinion/m.176878.html).
What is needed, Pavlova says, is “an alternative to the military parade in Red Square,” which by its very nature represents “a triumph of power and even more a triumph of the Stalinist type of rule.” And the appearance of Stalin’s portraits “65 years after the fact” is nothing other than “a cruel sentence” to a still unfree Russian society.
What many have forgotten on this anniversary, Pavlova says, is that “the truth of history is that on May 9 [1945] the people in Moscow celebrated victory in the war … without Stalin. Recollections about that stay present it as one of infinite joy and gratitude to the soldiers, whom people embraced, kissed and shook hands.”
Robert Tucker, the future biographer of Stalin, was at the American embassy in the Soviet capital in May 1945. He says, the Russian commentator continues, that he will never forget the celebratory behavior and comments of soldiers and ordinary Soviet citizens once victory was announced.
“Now is a time to live!” one young officer said, and Tucker watched as thousands of Soviet citizens came to the American embassy not with official slogans and banners, because this was “an unofficial event,” something “almost unheard of for Stalinist Russia, a spontaneous demonstration.”
It was, Pavlova continues, “a demonstration of gratitude to the country which alongside Russia in the most difficult task helped it to survive by supplying food and clothing. Yes,” she says, “this spontaneous demonstration was a demonstration of free people who had passed through war.”
Some writers who have described this demonstration have called those who took part in it “the new Decembrists,” drawing an analogy with those Russian officers who returned after the defeat of Napoleon and staged the protest in Senate Square in St. Petersburg in 1825 and demanded “Constantine and a Constitution.”
But the analogy breaks down: the participants in the May 19, 1945 protest missed their chance to bring Stalin to account “both for the pre-war decade and for the beginning of the war.” Pavlova says that she thinks that the Soviet people of 1945 “could not imagine the possibility of putting pressure on the powers that be.”
Stalin however was very much worried about such a turn of events, as his toast to the Russian people at the Kremlin meeting on May 24th showed. He said at that time that another people might have “said to its government: You did not justify our expectations, go away, we will establish another government … But the Russian people did not do this.”
The Soviet dictator, Pavlova continued, only organized a victory parade on June 24.. And in that demonstration of the “unqualified triumph of the powers that be” over the Soviet people as well as over the Nazis, “no one remembered the victims” -- although the next day Stalin did make reference to “the cogs” who had supported the regime.
That pattern has only gotten worse in recent years, Pavlova says, with some commentators talking more about the role of the secret police and its various branches during World War II than to the overwhelming contribution of the Soviet people to that effort and that victory.
As a result, “celebrating the jubilee of the Victory according to the scenario of the current Russian powers that be and its ideological inspirers is,” Pavlov says, “an insult to the memory of millions of simple frontline soldiers.” A much better and more honorable thing would be “not to take part in the official celebrations” but rather simply to “bow one’s head and remain quiet.”
Monday, April 12, 2010
Window on Eurasia: ‘Birth Trauma’ of Post-Soviet States Rooted in Problem of Property, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 12 – The post-Soviet states, despite all a striking diversity in appearances, share a common “birth trauma” involving the definition and defense of property, according to a Moscow commentator. And unless that problem is resolved, he suggests, more radical, ratchet-like changes of the kind now seen in Kyrgyzstan are likely across the region.
In an article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Kirill Rogov suggests that the recent events in Kyrgyzstan, whose endpoint is still far from clear, prompts a reconsideration of “such phenomena on the political map of the world which is called ‘the countries of the former USSR’” (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/038/13.html).
Rogov points to two trends that he says have characterized the region over the last decade. On the one hand, centrifugal forces have intensified as each countries tries to achieve its own economic profit, however much its leaders express a desire for cooperation with the other countries in the region. As a result, efforts at integration have proved stillborn.
And on the other, he argues, despite all the variety of systems now on offer, “it is becoming ever more evident that the political development of the countries of the former USSR is under pressure from a certain common ‘birth trauma,’” involving the inability of these countries to form the kind of institutions which protect ownership of property.
That can be seen, he continues, if one compares Ukraine and Belarus. Despite their differences -- Ukraine is a democracy and Belarus is a dictatorship -- “they have something very much in common.” The former constantly hits its head on the problem of property, while the latter having “resolved” it in an authoritarian way has only pushed a real solution off.
The recent clashes between the powers that be and the population in Kyrgyzstan provide a clear indication of this danger. Their lessons, Rogov suggests, are “above all a demonstration of how dangerous can be the absence of institutions under conditions of an authoritarianism created ad hoc and quite recently.”
In Kyrgyzstan, and by implication across the entire former Soviet space, “the opposition was driven into a corner, deprived of resources and systemic levers, and divided but despite this, the regime itself remained in reality extremely weak. The mechanisms of its legitimation were fictional and played a decorative role.”
But despite the apparent willingness of the population to put up with this, “at [some] critical moment, it suddenly turns out that the props of the regime, the bureaucracy and the force structures imitate loyalty in just the same way that the powers that be imitate legitimacy. And on one fine day,” everything collapses “like a house of cards.”
When the powers that be do what they can to prevent well-known and competent leaders from emerging to lead the opposition, the former simply guarantee that “unknown” leaders will emerge. And when the powers block “the legal channels of protest activity,” then they drive people toward illegal ones.
Such actions have their origins in “the problem of property,” Rogov continues, in the fear of those in power that “any institutionalization” of the mechanisms of control and ownership of property will be “mortally dangerous” for them, not because they are strong but because they know they are weak.
“Both the trader and the minister intuitively understand,” the Moscow commentator says, “that you hand over all more or less important posts and shares exclusively to relatives and old friends who are obliged exclusively to you for their dizzying rise not because you are powerful like Caligula, who could allow himself to name a horse senator, but for the opposite reason.”
The leaders in these states do this because they cannot count on anyone beyond a narrow circle, Rogov says. That reality has been highlighted by the installation of authoritarian regimes over the last decade which attempted “to resolve the question in a new way which was not in a satisfactory way resolved in the democratic cycle – the question of the control of property.
And all this “in part explains the ease and speed with which these coalitions form and gather strength.” But it also explains why they are so weak and so much at risk of challenge and collapse. And that will continue as long as the elites involved see their interest as lying in keeping by various means “a high level of indeterminacy” in the definition of property.
The reason for that, Rogov suggests, is to be found “not in that the satraps and elites do not want to establish rules of the game but in that they cannot do this.” But the problem is broader than that. Like the elites, the populations of this region “have become accustomed to forms of political and economic arrangements that are neither one thing nor the other.”
Vienna, April 12 – The post-Soviet states, despite all a striking diversity in appearances, share a common “birth trauma” involving the definition and defense of property, according to a Moscow commentator. And unless that problem is resolved, he suggests, more radical, ratchet-like changes of the kind now seen in Kyrgyzstan are likely across the region.
In an article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Kirill Rogov suggests that the recent events in Kyrgyzstan, whose endpoint is still far from clear, prompts a reconsideration of “such phenomena on the political map of the world which is called ‘the countries of the former USSR’” (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/038/13.html).
Rogov points to two trends that he says have characterized the region over the last decade. On the one hand, centrifugal forces have intensified as each countries tries to achieve its own economic profit, however much its leaders express a desire for cooperation with the other countries in the region. As a result, efforts at integration have proved stillborn.
And on the other, he argues, despite all the variety of systems now on offer, “it is becoming ever more evident that the political development of the countries of the former USSR is under pressure from a certain common ‘birth trauma,’” involving the inability of these countries to form the kind of institutions which protect ownership of property.
That can be seen, he continues, if one compares Ukraine and Belarus. Despite their differences -- Ukraine is a democracy and Belarus is a dictatorship -- “they have something very much in common.” The former constantly hits its head on the problem of property, while the latter having “resolved” it in an authoritarian way has only pushed a real solution off.
The recent clashes between the powers that be and the population in Kyrgyzstan provide a clear indication of this danger. Their lessons, Rogov suggests, are “above all a demonstration of how dangerous can be the absence of institutions under conditions of an authoritarianism created ad hoc and quite recently.”
In Kyrgyzstan, and by implication across the entire former Soviet space, “the opposition was driven into a corner, deprived of resources and systemic levers, and divided but despite this, the regime itself remained in reality extremely weak. The mechanisms of its legitimation were fictional and played a decorative role.”
But despite the apparent willingness of the population to put up with this, “at [some] critical moment, it suddenly turns out that the props of the regime, the bureaucracy and the force structures imitate loyalty in just the same way that the powers that be imitate legitimacy. And on one fine day,” everything collapses “like a house of cards.”
When the powers that be do what they can to prevent well-known and competent leaders from emerging to lead the opposition, the former simply guarantee that “unknown” leaders will emerge. And when the powers block “the legal channels of protest activity,” then they drive people toward illegal ones.
Such actions have their origins in “the problem of property,” Rogov continues, in the fear of those in power that “any institutionalization” of the mechanisms of control and ownership of property will be “mortally dangerous” for them, not because they are strong but because they know they are weak.
“Both the trader and the minister intuitively understand,” the Moscow commentator says, “that you hand over all more or less important posts and shares exclusively to relatives and old friends who are obliged exclusively to you for their dizzying rise not because you are powerful like Caligula, who could allow himself to name a horse senator, but for the opposite reason.”
The leaders in these states do this because they cannot count on anyone beyond a narrow circle, Rogov says. That reality has been highlighted by the installation of authoritarian regimes over the last decade which attempted “to resolve the question in a new way which was not in a satisfactory way resolved in the democratic cycle – the question of the control of property.
And all this “in part explains the ease and speed with which these coalitions form and gather strength.” But it also explains why they are so weak and so much at risk of challenge and collapse. And that will continue as long as the elites involved see their interest as lying in keeping by various means “a high level of indeterminacy” in the definition of property.
The reason for that, Rogov suggests, is to be found “not in that the satraps and elites do not want to establish rules of the game but in that they cannot do this.” But the problem is broader than that. Like the elites, the populations of this region “have become accustomed to forms of political and economic arrangements that are neither one thing nor the other.”
Window on Eurasia: Putin’s Time Has Passed and His Return to Presidency Would Be Dangerous for Russia, Moscow Experts Warn
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 12 – Vladimir Putin’s time has passed, his efforts to preserve rather than modernize the country’s political and economic systems are opening the way to disaster, and his return to the Russian presidency would be dangerous for Russia, according to two scholars who recently prepared a report about Russia’ future for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
In an interview published in today’s “Delovoy Peterburg,” Yevgeny Gontmakher, the head of the Center of Social Policy at the Academy of Sciences Institute of Economics, and Igor Yurgens, the head of the Moscow Institute of Contemporary Development, lay out the reasons for their conclusions (www.dp.ru/a/2010/04/12/CHto_budet_esli_Vladimir).
The paper’s Natalya Belogrudova begins by asking Yurgens whether as many in the West have suggested that Medvedev has “humanized the Russian powers that be.” Yurgens responds that Medvedev “represents a new generation of people” and that “it is absolutely evident” that under him, the Kremlin has been more interested in ideas.
But Yurgens suggests that it would be “premature” to say that this change, which has captured the imagination and support of the intelligentsia, has attracted “a large part of the electorate,” even though “Dmitry Medvedev undoubtedly has acquired a cluster of supporters.” Whether he would win “if the elections were tomorrow,” however, “is an open question.”
Pressed by Belogrudova to explain his recent comment to Reuters that if Putin returned to the office of president, “he would go down in history as Brezhnev Number Two,” Yurgens says that statement reflects both the reality that people get tired of any leader after he has been in office for too long.
And, more important, he continues, it reflects that fact that “Vladimir Vladimirovich is a man of the times of collecting stones and stabilization. The time of modernization has come.” Putin calls for “conservative modernization, but this in essence is an oxymoron. There can be either modernization or conservatism. A third is not possible.”
Those around Putin, Yurgens says, are “preservers both by preparation and mentality. The time of other people has come.” Consequently, “the coming of Vladimir Putin to power [as president] in 2012 both for himself and for the system as a whole would be a politically risky step.”
Asked whether Putin’s return was likely, Yurgens says “at present no one can calculate that besides two people, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. They have frequently told us that they will decide this question. This isn’t very democratic and demeans a significant part of the intelligentsia, but it is a fact.” The only sure thing is that elections will happen.
Turning to Gontmakher, the “Delovoy Peterburg” correspondent asks him why there is “not real strong opposition” in Russia now. Gontmakher says that this reflects the policies of Putin who during his presidency did what he could to “cleanse” the entire political space of the country.
As a result, Gontmakher continues, there are real dangers. They consist in the fact that “in the bouillon of dissatisfaction which is bubbling as a result of the absence of a competitive political system sooner or later an extra-systemic leader of an unofficial type may appear.”
That is what happened in Germany in the 1930s, he points out, implying that unless the Russian system opens up something similar could happen in the Russian Federation at some time in the future. To prevent that, he says, it is necessary for the country “to change the political elite now.”
“That elite which was formed in the course of recent years of oil and gas stagnation does not need change. It is satisfied with everything. The problems which are growing from below, it does not see, or it does not want to see.” And consequently, it will resist change rather than help promote it.
Forming “a new elite,” Gontmakher continues, “will be possible only through the creation of a health political system: when there are real and not invented political parties and when there appear outspoken leaders and no one suppresses them. There is nothing terrible that they will ‘gnaw away’ at the leadership.” That is what politics is about.
Yurgens adds that what the powers that be view as support is simply the weariness people feel after almost 25 years of change. But that quiescence is deceptive in a double way. On the one hand, it conceals the contempt many have for their leaders; on the other, it conceals a desire for competition and an end to monopolies in economics and politics.
Around Medvedev people are “constantly” analyzing the situation, not only of the country as it now is but as it will be 20 years from now when the oil and gas will not be in a position to purchase the security of the country and of its current powers that be. At that point, these people understand that Russia will become a “Third World country” if nothing is done.
Asked by Belogrudova whether he “really” thinks Medvedev is thinking about the country 20 years from now, Yurgens said that in his view Medvedev, even though he knows he will not be in office, “cannot but be thinking that this son should live in a country with which the world will take into account.”
And Gontmakher concludes that “in the ruling elite now there are two positions: one is interested in preserving what is and does not think it is necessary to change anything. The other part of the elite really thinks about what the country will be likely five to ten years from now and thus does not want to put up with the current situation.”
“Whether this part of the elite has strength” enough to change the situation, he says, “is an open question. In fact, everything will depend on who will be president in 2012,” someone who is for preserving the existing system or someone who is interested in modernizing Russia for the future.
Vienna, April 12 – Vladimir Putin’s time has passed, his efforts to preserve rather than modernize the country’s political and economic systems are opening the way to disaster, and his return to the Russian presidency would be dangerous for Russia, according to two scholars who recently prepared a report about Russia’ future for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
In an interview published in today’s “Delovoy Peterburg,” Yevgeny Gontmakher, the head of the Center of Social Policy at the Academy of Sciences Institute of Economics, and Igor Yurgens, the head of the Moscow Institute of Contemporary Development, lay out the reasons for their conclusions (www.dp.ru/a/2010/04/12/CHto_budet_esli_Vladimir).
The paper’s Natalya Belogrudova begins by asking Yurgens whether as many in the West have suggested that Medvedev has “humanized the Russian powers that be.” Yurgens responds that Medvedev “represents a new generation of people” and that “it is absolutely evident” that under him, the Kremlin has been more interested in ideas.
But Yurgens suggests that it would be “premature” to say that this change, which has captured the imagination and support of the intelligentsia, has attracted “a large part of the electorate,” even though “Dmitry Medvedev undoubtedly has acquired a cluster of supporters.” Whether he would win “if the elections were tomorrow,” however, “is an open question.”
Pressed by Belogrudova to explain his recent comment to Reuters that if Putin returned to the office of president, “he would go down in history as Brezhnev Number Two,” Yurgens says that statement reflects both the reality that people get tired of any leader after he has been in office for too long.
And, more important, he continues, it reflects that fact that “Vladimir Vladimirovich is a man of the times of collecting stones and stabilization. The time of modernization has come.” Putin calls for “conservative modernization, but this in essence is an oxymoron. There can be either modernization or conservatism. A third is not possible.”
Those around Putin, Yurgens says, are “preservers both by preparation and mentality. The time of other people has come.” Consequently, “the coming of Vladimir Putin to power [as president] in 2012 both for himself and for the system as a whole would be a politically risky step.”
Asked whether Putin’s return was likely, Yurgens says “at present no one can calculate that besides two people, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. They have frequently told us that they will decide this question. This isn’t very democratic and demeans a significant part of the intelligentsia, but it is a fact.” The only sure thing is that elections will happen.
Turning to Gontmakher, the “Delovoy Peterburg” correspondent asks him why there is “not real strong opposition” in Russia now. Gontmakher says that this reflects the policies of Putin who during his presidency did what he could to “cleanse” the entire political space of the country.
As a result, Gontmakher continues, there are real dangers. They consist in the fact that “in the bouillon of dissatisfaction which is bubbling as a result of the absence of a competitive political system sooner or later an extra-systemic leader of an unofficial type may appear.”
That is what happened in Germany in the 1930s, he points out, implying that unless the Russian system opens up something similar could happen in the Russian Federation at some time in the future. To prevent that, he says, it is necessary for the country “to change the political elite now.”
“That elite which was formed in the course of recent years of oil and gas stagnation does not need change. It is satisfied with everything. The problems which are growing from below, it does not see, or it does not want to see.” And consequently, it will resist change rather than help promote it.
Forming “a new elite,” Gontmakher continues, “will be possible only through the creation of a health political system: when there are real and not invented political parties and when there appear outspoken leaders and no one suppresses them. There is nothing terrible that they will ‘gnaw away’ at the leadership.” That is what politics is about.
Yurgens adds that what the powers that be view as support is simply the weariness people feel after almost 25 years of change. But that quiescence is deceptive in a double way. On the one hand, it conceals the contempt many have for their leaders; on the other, it conceals a desire for competition and an end to monopolies in economics and politics.
Around Medvedev people are “constantly” analyzing the situation, not only of the country as it now is but as it will be 20 years from now when the oil and gas will not be in a position to purchase the security of the country and of its current powers that be. At that point, these people understand that Russia will become a “Third World country” if nothing is done.
Asked by Belogrudova whether he “really” thinks Medvedev is thinking about the country 20 years from now, Yurgens said that in his view Medvedev, even though he knows he will not be in office, “cannot but be thinking that this son should live in a country with which the world will take into account.”
And Gontmakher concludes that “in the ruling elite now there are two positions: one is interested in preserving what is and does not think it is necessary to change anything. The other part of the elite really thinks about what the country will be likely five to ten years from now and thus does not want to put up with the current situation.”
“Whether this part of the elite has strength” enough to change the situation, he says, “is an open question. In fact, everything will depend on who will be president in 2012,” someone who is for preserving the existing system or someone who is interested in modernizing Russia for the future.
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