Paul Goble
New York, March 24 – Rosstat, the Russian State Statistics Committee, has been playing so many games with the data it has released on that country’s economy, according to a Moscow analyst, that at the present time, one cannot say whether they bear any relation to reality in terms of the direction they ostensibly point to or the magnitude of the vector they supposedly show.
In an article in the current issue of “New Times,” Dmitry Krylov says that recent data offered by Rosstat on trends in the economy provide grounds “neither for pessimism nor for optimism” because the statistics agency has played with the data in such a way that “one simply should not believe Rosstat numbers” (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/17604).
After not putting out its index of industrial production during the early months of the economic crisis, Rosstat at the start of this year started to do so again. “If one believes the latest data, [industrial production] rose 5.8 percent in January-February [2010] in comparison with the same period a year earlier,” and it rose 4.8 percent from January to February of this year alone.
“What do these numbers in fact mean?” Krylov asked Igor Nikolayev, head of strategic analysis at the FBK Company. The latter responded that it is difficult to interpret what these numbers mean or to make the comparisons that Rosstat is claiming because the statistics agency changed its methodology in the intervening period.
Consequently, Nikolayev continued, it is “incorrect” to claim as the powers that be in Moscow regularly do that the country’s industrial production is picking up speed. That might be true, but it might not be, either in terms of size or direction. And the decision of Rosstat to introduce these changes in the current crisis raises questions about the agency’s intentions.
The first change Rosstat made, Sergey Tsukhlo of the Moscow Institute of the Economy of the Transition Period said, was to change the weighting of the various component factors of its index, a reasonable shift given the changing structure of the industrial sector but one that makes comparisons problematic.
Specifically, the economist said, Rosstat increased the weighting given to the extraction sector and reduced that of other parts of the economy, thus giving the overall figure a boost from Russia’s petroleum production and reducing the negative impact of declines in other parts of the economy.
The second change Rosstat made, Vladimir Bessonov, an analyst at the Moscow Higher Economic School, told “New Times,” was to shift to “another classification of types of industrial production. The system it had been using made comparisons with other economies difficult but the new one makes comparisons among Russian data over time problematic.
Moreover, Tsukhlo added, this second shift further compromised the overall data because it changed the way in which the index took into account seasonable fluctuations to such an extent that it “made significantly more difficult the identification of short-term tendencies” in the development of the economy.
According to Rosstat spokesmen, the agency’s intentions were, in Krylov’s words, “noble, an adaptation to international standards of the use of data.” And they insisted that the changes that Rosstat introduced at the start of this year were “planned already before the crisis” and that “preparation for them was conducted in a regular work regime.”
“But,” the “New Times” journalist says, “why did the time for their introduction come during a crisis when attention to official economic information and especially to comparisons of indicators for various short-term periods reached at apogee among government agencies, scholars and the expert community as well as among ordinary citizens as well?”
Such shifts, whatever the intentions of those behind them, left the government and society “blinded” for a certain time, forcing both “to wander about as in a fog,” waiting for Rosstat “to harmonize the data calculated according to the old and new methods as it has promised to do before the end of April.
This absence of reliable official data has led various analytic centers to offer their own individual accounts, “using their own sources,” including in particular their own surveys of various industries. Not surprisingly, because their selections are different, the figures that they offer vary widely, some suggesting more progress than Rosstat does and others less.
But this “loss of comparable data,” Krylov continues, has broader consequences as well, leading to errors in the compilation of broader figures such as GDP which rely on Rosstat data. The economic development ministry which is responsible for GDP numbers is required “to use Rosstat data … and [this data] is distorted.”
Tsukhlo told “New Times” that the timing of Rosstat’s transition to new formulas was not well-chosen. If the agency had done this before the crisis, “then the changes would in practice not have armed [anyone],” but because it took this step in the last few months, Rosstat has left everyone wandering around in the dark.
Some in Rosstat agree. One source there told Krylov that “you don’t change horses in the middle of a stream” and that these “changes should have been put off for a year.” But the source insisted that what had happened was not the result of “a secret conspiracy or ill will but simply because responsible people in the government and Rosstat did not understand the nuances.”
FBK’s Nikolayev is less sure about that, Krylov says. The economic analyst notes the development ministry had “a desire to prettify reality” because “the pow3rs that be3 want to show everything that the crisis has come to an end. I have no other explanation than that [Rosstat’s action came as a result of] a political order from above.”
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Misreading Latest Protests, Russian Paper Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 23 – Officials in Moscow are misreading last weekend’s protests, viewing the relatively small size of the demonstrations as evidence that the population is “satisfied” with its situation rather than understanding that any decline in popular participation reflects the increasing “alienation” of the people and government.
That is the conclusion offered by the editors of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” in a lead article published today. And they add that unless Moscow understands this reality and unless the government takes steps to overcome this “alienation,” Russia’s future will be anything but bright (www.ng.ru/editorial/2010-03-23/2_red.html).
Most Russian commentaries have focused on the relatively small size of the demonstrations, and using that facet of the situation alone, the editors say, the powers that be have concluded that the citizens are “satisfied,” that the government’s policies are working, and that the Medvedev-Putin tandem is a success.
In the same vein, the commentaries have insisted and the powers that be have assumed that the Russian people are turning away from the opposition because of “the correct course of United Russia, which is firmly marching forward toward the parliamentary elections despite the petty snares of [its] political opponents.”
But a closer examination of the situation, the editors say, points in a different direction. Unemployment has not fallen but risen, and the government’s programs to deal with the company town problem are not working. More and more groups, including pensioners, are suffering from rising prices.
The commentaries and it should be said, “Nezavisimaya” as well, put little stress on the efforts the powers that be made to keep the size of protests down, not only hacking the website coordinating the various meetings but limiting media coverage of them but also using the siloviki to disrupt the activities of organizers and to move against those who took part.
(At the same time, neither the commentaries “Nezavisimaya” refers to nor that paper itself mentions one of the most potentially significant aspects of last weekend’s protests: They took place in 50 cities at once, perhaps the largest coordinated effort within the Russian Federation ever. For a useful map, see newtimes.ru/upload/medialibrary/002/big_karta.jpg.)
The editors of “Nezavisimaya” focus on the following reality: “people are not hurrying to go into the streets” despite their deteriorating situation, and they “are not demanding anything from the government.” The reason why, the editors say, is that “people simply do not believe that the government can help them.”
Over the last two decades at least, “those taking part in meetings have always appealed to the powers that be. [But] today Russians understand just how useful an activity that is,” even when it involves something as “innocent” as “the defense of one of the paragraphs” of the country’s Constitution.
Russian citizens now, the paper continues, “have selected another path. Now, they dream only about a situation in which the powers that be will leave them in peace and not interfere. And then people with their own efforts will begin to construct around themselves an infrastructure of survival.” With petty bribes, if needed, the paper says, but on their own.
The real situation in Russia becomes obvious if one contrasts the country with the United States. On Sunday, the US Congress voted for the reform of health care, following “a hot discussion” that reflected the awareness among the American people that this measure affected each of them.”
“What problem of state importance would be capable of awakening [such] civic feelings in the population of Russia?” the paper asks. “The construction of a nano-city? Conservative modernization?” Certainly not those ideas, it suggests, arguing that “the powers that be also are living their own lives,” largely out of touch with the rest of the population.
And that means that the real problem Russia faces is the failure of any feedback loop “between society and the powers that be.” As a result, “mutual distrust is growing,” with some in the government experiencing “a fear of an Orange Revolution and many in the population becoming ever less willing to “connect with the powers that be for the solution of problems.”
“It is difficult to plan the future of a country,” the paper says, without knowing the desires of the people. “And it is impossible to carry out reforms without operating on the conscious desire of the citizens to participate in them.” Tragically, the population of Russia is increasingly convinced that everything the powers that be do is intended to benefit only them.”
Last weekend’s protests, their small size in many places notwithstanding, shows that “the powers that be have build up a debt to the citizens.” Overcoming this “alienation” will require that those in positions of power take “concrete steps to meet society,” real steps and not the setting up or more “councils” or “chambers.”
It is far from clear whether the powers that be understand any of this, but unless they stop misinterpreting the social scene in Russia and recognize just how alienated the people are from themselves, it is unlikely that they will take any of the right steps. Instead, it is probable that the alienation now on display will intensify.
Vienna, March 23 – Officials in Moscow are misreading last weekend’s protests, viewing the relatively small size of the demonstrations as evidence that the population is “satisfied” with its situation rather than understanding that any decline in popular participation reflects the increasing “alienation” of the people and government.
That is the conclusion offered by the editors of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” in a lead article published today. And they add that unless Moscow understands this reality and unless the government takes steps to overcome this “alienation,” Russia’s future will be anything but bright (www.ng.ru/editorial/2010-03-23/2_red.html).
Most Russian commentaries have focused on the relatively small size of the demonstrations, and using that facet of the situation alone, the editors say, the powers that be have concluded that the citizens are “satisfied,” that the government’s policies are working, and that the Medvedev-Putin tandem is a success.
In the same vein, the commentaries have insisted and the powers that be have assumed that the Russian people are turning away from the opposition because of “the correct course of United Russia, which is firmly marching forward toward the parliamentary elections despite the petty snares of [its] political opponents.”
But a closer examination of the situation, the editors say, points in a different direction. Unemployment has not fallen but risen, and the government’s programs to deal with the company town problem are not working. More and more groups, including pensioners, are suffering from rising prices.
The commentaries and it should be said, “Nezavisimaya” as well, put little stress on the efforts the powers that be made to keep the size of protests down, not only hacking the website coordinating the various meetings but limiting media coverage of them but also using the siloviki to disrupt the activities of organizers and to move against those who took part.
(At the same time, neither the commentaries “Nezavisimaya” refers to nor that paper itself mentions one of the most potentially significant aspects of last weekend’s protests: They took place in 50 cities at once, perhaps the largest coordinated effort within the Russian Federation ever. For a useful map, see newtimes.ru/upload/medialibrary/002/big_karta.jpg.)
The editors of “Nezavisimaya” focus on the following reality: “people are not hurrying to go into the streets” despite their deteriorating situation, and they “are not demanding anything from the government.” The reason why, the editors say, is that “people simply do not believe that the government can help them.”
Over the last two decades at least, “those taking part in meetings have always appealed to the powers that be. [But] today Russians understand just how useful an activity that is,” even when it involves something as “innocent” as “the defense of one of the paragraphs” of the country’s Constitution.
Russian citizens now, the paper continues, “have selected another path. Now, they dream only about a situation in which the powers that be will leave them in peace and not interfere. And then people with their own efforts will begin to construct around themselves an infrastructure of survival.” With petty bribes, if needed, the paper says, but on their own.
The real situation in Russia becomes obvious if one contrasts the country with the United States. On Sunday, the US Congress voted for the reform of health care, following “a hot discussion” that reflected the awareness among the American people that this measure affected each of them.”
“What problem of state importance would be capable of awakening [such] civic feelings in the population of Russia?” the paper asks. “The construction of a nano-city? Conservative modernization?” Certainly not those ideas, it suggests, arguing that “the powers that be also are living their own lives,” largely out of touch with the rest of the population.
And that means that the real problem Russia faces is the failure of any feedback loop “between society and the powers that be.” As a result, “mutual distrust is growing,” with some in the government experiencing “a fear of an Orange Revolution and many in the population becoming ever less willing to “connect with the powers that be for the solution of problems.”
“It is difficult to plan the future of a country,” the paper says, without knowing the desires of the people. “And it is impossible to carry out reforms without operating on the conscious desire of the citizens to participate in them.” Tragically, the population of Russia is increasingly convinced that everything the powers that be do is intended to benefit only them.”
Last weekend’s protests, their small size in many places notwithstanding, shows that “the powers that be have build up a debt to the citizens.” Overcoming this “alienation” will require that those in positions of power take “concrete steps to meet society,” real steps and not the setting up or more “councils” or “chambers.”
It is far from clear whether the powers that be understand any of this, but unless they stop misinterpreting the social scene in Russia and recognize just how alienated the people are from themselves, it is unlikely that they will take any of the right steps. Instead, it is probable that the alienation now on display will intensify.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Expectations for Ukraine Excessive, Likely to Be Dashed, Kremlin Expert Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 23 – Russian commentaries on the consequences of Viktor Yanukovich’s election as president of Ukraine have raised expectations in Moscow to such an unrealistically high point that some or all of them almost certainly are going to be dashed in the months ahead, according to a Kremlin expert on national security.
In a comment posted online this week, Aleksandr Mikhaylenko, a professor of national security at the Russian Academy of Government Service in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, says “the idealization of the post-election situation in Ukraine” is not in Russia’s interest (www.eurasianhome.org/xml/t/expert.xml?lang=ru&nic=expert&pid=2344).
Since the Ukrainian presidential elections, the national security specialist says, the Russian media have been filled with materials which “excessively idealize the situation in Ukraine,” thus creating among Russians and the Russian political class “heightened expectations” about where Kyiv will go with respect to Moscow.
But, he continues, “an analysis shows that the elections just past were yet another testimonial of the fact that [Ukraine] remains split in half.” That provides the explanation for the “transparency and democracy” of the elections: “the forces of the competing sides [were and remain] approximately equal.”
Indeed, Mikhaylenko continues, Yanukovich won “to a significant degree” thanks to the actions of his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko, who behaved in such a way that he guaranteed he would lose. As a result, the Moscow writer say, many in Ukraine and in Russia are ready to award Yushchenko the title of Hero of Russia for opening the way for Yanukovich.
And that even division explains both why there was not an echo of the Orange Revolution this time around and why Yanukovich almost certainly will behave very differently now that he is Ukrainian president than he said he would while he was engaged in a campaign to gain that office.
Yulia Timoshenko, whom Yanukovich defeated, clearly was thinking about a repetition of the earlier events, pointedly declaring after the vote that “Yanukovich is not our president,” but the new incumbent countered by bringing in his supporters in the force structures into the Ukrainian capital in a show of force.
That prevented an Orange Revolution II, Mikhaylenko says, but adds that “it is not difficult [for him] to imagine that the next time [there is a political crisis in Ukraine] the opposition will call people to come out into the streets,” something that makes predicting the future of Kyiv’s policies extremely difficult.
And Yanukovich clearly is aware that governing is different than campaigning. By making his first foreign visit to Brussels rather than to Moscow and by declaring that Ukrainian will remain “the single state language,” the new president has shown that he is not going to change direction too far or too quickly lest he exacerbate tensions inside Ukraine.
There has not been and will not be a “180 degree” change of direction under Yanukovich. “No one needs” what that would entail, the Moscow analyst continues, recalling that one of Yushchenko’s first mistake in 2005 was to replace some 18,000 government employees, insisting on loyalty and getting “absolute incompetence.” No one wants a repetition.
For all these reasons, the Moscow advisor concludes, no one in the Russian capital should assume that there now exists, after Yanukovich’s rise to office, “a single scenario for the development of the political situation in Ukraine” and that that scenario points to a complete rapprochement between Kyiv and Moscow.
“Alongside these excessively optimistic prognostications,” Mikhaylenko argues, “one must keep in mind other possible variants as well.” It could be that Ukraine will not turn toward Russia as many in Russia expect, not only because of its internal divisions but because of Russian and Western actions.
And at the very least, the Kremlin advisor says, there is going to be in the Ukrainian capital “a lengthy struggle” among the various contenders none of whom has left the scene. Moscow, Mikhaylenko says, must “construct its policy” toward Kyiv not only reflecting Russia’s interests but also Ukraine’s real situation.
Vienna, March 23 – Russian commentaries on the consequences of Viktor Yanukovich’s election as president of Ukraine have raised expectations in Moscow to such an unrealistically high point that some or all of them almost certainly are going to be dashed in the months ahead, according to a Kremlin expert on national security.
In a comment posted online this week, Aleksandr Mikhaylenko, a professor of national security at the Russian Academy of Government Service in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, says “the idealization of the post-election situation in Ukraine” is not in Russia’s interest (www.eurasianhome.org/xml/t/expert.xml?lang=ru&nic=expert&pid=2344).
Since the Ukrainian presidential elections, the national security specialist says, the Russian media have been filled with materials which “excessively idealize the situation in Ukraine,” thus creating among Russians and the Russian political class “heightened expectations” about where Kyiv will go with respect to Moscow.
But, he continues, “an analysis shows that the elections just past were yet another testimonial of the fact that [Ukraine] remains split in half.” That provides the explanation for the “transparency and democracy” of the elections: “the forces of the competing sides [were and remain] approximately equal.”
Indeed, Mikhaylenko continues, Yanukovich won “to a significant degree” thanks to the actions of his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko, who behaved in such a way that he guaranteed he would lose. As a result, the Moscow writer say, many in Ukraine and in Russia are ready to award Yushchenko the title of Hero of Russia for opening the way for Yanukovich.
And that even division explains both why there was not an echo of the Orange Revolution this time around and why Yanukovich almost certainly will behave very differently now that he is Ukrainian president than he said he would while he was engaged in a campaign to gain that office.
Yulia Timoshenko, whom Yanukovich defeated, clearly was thinking about a repetition of the earlier events, pointedly declaring after the vote that “Yanukovich is not our president,” but the new incumbent countered by bringing in his supporters in the force structures into the Ukrainian capital in a show of force.
That prevented an Orange Revolution II, Mikhaylenko says, but adds that “it is not difficult [for him] to imagine that the next time [there is a political crisis in Ukraine] the opposition will call people to come out into the streets,” something that makes predicting the future of Kyiv’s policies extremely difficult.
And Yanukovich clearly is aware that governing is different than campaigning. By making his first foreign visit to Brussels rather than to Moscow and by declaring that Ukrainian will remain “the single state language,” the new president has shown that he is not going to change direction too far or too quickly lest he exacerbate tensions inside Ukraine.
There has not been and will not be a “180 degree” change of direction under Yanukovich. “No one needs” what that would entail, the Moscow analyst continues, recalling that one of Yushchenko’s first mistake in 2005 was to replace some 18,000 government employees, insisting on loyalty and getting “absolute incompetence.” No one wants a repetition.
For all these reasons, the Moscow advisor concludes, no one in the Russian capital should assume that there now exists, after Yanukovich’s rise to office, “a single scenario for the development of the political situation in Ukraine” and that that scenario points to a complete rapprochement between Kyiv and Moscow.
“Alongside these excessively optimistic prognostications,” Mikhaylenko argues, “one must keep in mind other possible variants as well.” It could be that Ukraine will not turn toward Russia as many in Russia expect, not only because of its internal divisions but because of Russian and Western actions.
And at the very least, the Kremlin advisor says, there is going to be in the Ukrainian capital “a lengthy struggle” among the various contenders none of whom has left the scene. Moscow, Mikhaylenko says, must “construct its policy” toward Kyiv not only reflecting Russia’s interests but also Ukraine’s real situation.
Window on Eurasia: Russians Forced to Confront Implications of Large Number of ‘Ethnic Orthodox’
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 23 – Russians for a long time have dismissed many of the traditionally Islamic peoples of their country as “ethnic Muslims,” a term that refers to the fact that, as a result of Soviet anti-religious policies and modernization, many members of these nations identify as Muslims but neither know much about Islam or practice the faith.
Now, largely in reaction to a new poll, Russians and especially Russian religious leaders are having to focus on the reality that alongside “ethnic Muslims,” there appear to be an increasing number of “ethnic Orthodox” Russians who identify with the religion but neither know much about it or take part in religious practice.
The confrontation with that somewhat uncomfortable reality has at least two serious consequences. On the one hand, it calls into question the claims the Moscow Patriarchate makes and that some in the Russian government accept that the Russian Federation is genuinely “an Orthodox Christian” country.
And on the other – and quite possibly more importantly -- it raises the question as to whether some members of the nominally Orthodox Russian community may be subject to radicalization, as some of the “ethnic” Muslims have been, either on a religious basis or because of the efforts of political entrepreneurs to exploit that undefined identity.
Earlier this month, the Public Opinion Foundation released the results of a poll which found that 72 percent of the population of Russia identify as Orthodox, 12 percent more than in 2008-2009, but that only four percent regularly attend church and follow religious rules, a fraction that has remained almost unchanged over the last decade.
The same poll found that 84 percent of the population say that “Russia needs Orthodoxy,” a percentage greater than the share of ethnic Russians among Russian residents. And the foundation reported that 11percent of the Russian population identify themselves as atheists, seven percent as Muslims, and two percent to other Christian groups.
As it often does in response to such news reports, the Regions.ru news agency surveyed the opinions of various religious figures concerning their views as to how reliable these figures are and why there is the number of Russians who practice Orthodoxy is so much smaller than the number who identify with it (www.regions.ru/news/2278972/).
Archpriest Valentin Timakov, the deputy chief editor of the Moscow Patriarchate’s publishing house, told the news agency that he thought the figure of four percent active Orthodox was too low, but he acknowledged that “the enormous gap between the number of nominal and churched Orthodox really exists.”
In his view, Timakov continued, the gap reflects “the strict discipline and serious internal work” required for those who are fully Orthodox. “Many now,” he said, “are simply not up to that.” But he added that “the future of our entire Fatherland” depends on whether this will change or not.
What matters, of course, is not so much “the external observation of doctrinal norms” as “the changes [which] take place in souls,” the archpriest said, but the future of Orthodoxy and of Russians will reflect not only the commitment and actions of believers themselves but also “the relations of the Church with society and government.”
A second Orthodox leader, Archpriest Maksim Kozlov, who serves as pastor of the church at Moscow State University, said he thought the poll results were accurate but incomplete because they did not call attention to what he says is the growing number of practicing Orthodox in cities and among the educated and the intellectual “soup” of the nominal Orthodox.
But a third Orthodox leader, Archpriest Aleksandr Lavrin, a pastor in Tsaritsyn, “expressed regret” about the high percentage of atheists identified by the poll. In his view, most of them are simply “religious indifferent.” On another matter, he pointed out that the gap the poll had found with the Orthodox had long existed among Muslims.
Regions.ru also spokes with two Muslim leaders. Mukhammedgali-khazrat Khuzin, head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Perm, said he was “sincerely glad” that more young Russians were returning to religion, but at the same time, he offered his views “ethnic” believers.
“Muslims earlier never had such a term as ‘nominal’ membership in religion,” he pointed out. “Islam defines all side of the life of a Muslim … and with us even in Soviet times, all traditions were observed. Today, the term ‘nominal Muslim’ exists, but all the same, believing Muslims are more than non-believing ones.”
But clearly the situation with Orthodoxy is different, Khuzin continued. “Unlike Islam, Orthodoxy does not define all aspects of the life of an individual, and therefore the number of nominal Orthodox is greater than the number of practicing ones,” although he expressed the hope that this will change as a result of an increase in the number of practicing Orthodox.
The other Muslim leader, Albir-khazrat Krganov, the first deputy chairman of the Central MSD and a member of the Social Chamber of the Russian Federation, said that the pattern was clear: members of various nationalities identify with the religion that has been traditional with their group regardless of what they actually think.
Among the representatives of other faiths polled, Rabbi Zinoviy Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Groups in Russia (KEROOR), said he fully agreed with the findings of the Public Opinion Foundation especially concerning the importance of Orthodoxy for Russia as a country.
He said that he had long maintained that “namely the Russian Orthodox Church unites Russia from the Kurile Islands to Kaliningrad. Russia will always be true to Orthodoxy. [And] as a patriot of Russia, I am glad of its successes and will always supporting the strengthening of our power.”
Vienna, March 23 – Russians for a long time have dismissed many of the traditionally Islamic peoples of their country as “ethnic Muslims,” a term that refers to the fact that, as a result of Soviet anti-religious policies and modernization, many members of these nations identify as Muslims but neither know much about Islam or practice the faith.
Now, largely in reaction to a new poll, Russians and especially Russian religious leaders are having to focus on the reality that alongside “ethnic Muslims,” there appear to be an increasing number of “ethnic Orthodox” Russians who identify with the religion but neither know much about it or take part in religious practice.
The confrontation with that somewhat uncomfortable reality has at least two serious consequences. On the one hand, it calls into question the claims the Moscow Patriarchate makes and that some in the Russian government accept that the Russian Federation is genuinely “an Orthodox Christian” country.
And on the other – and quite possibly more importantly -- it raises the question as to whether some members of the nominally Orthodox Russian community may be subject to radicalization, as some of the “ethnic” Muslims have been, either on a religious basis or because of the efforts of political entrepreneurs to exploit that undefined identity.
Earlier this month, the Public Opinion Foundation released the results of a poll which found that 72 percent of the population of Russia identify as Orthodox, 12 percent more than in 2008-2009, but that only four percent regularly attend church and follow religious rules, a fraction that has remained almost unchanged over the last decade.
The same poll found that 84 percent of the population say that “Russia needs Orthodoxy,” a percentage greater than the share of ethnic Russians among Russian residents. And the foundation reported that 11percent of the Russian population identify themselves as atheists, seven percent as Muslims, and two percent to other Christian groups.
As it often does in response to such news reports, the Regions.ru news agency surveyed the opinions of various religious figures concerning their views as to how reliable these figures are and why there is the number of Russians who practice Orthodoxy is so much smaller than the number who identify with it (www.regions.ru/news/2278972/).
Archpriest Valentin Timakov, the deputy chief editor of the Moscow Patriarchate’s publishing house, told the news agency that he thought the figure of four percent active Orthodox was too low, but he acknowledged that “the enormous gap between the number of nominal and churched Orthodox really exists.”
In his view, Timakov continued, the gap reflects “the strict discipline and serious internal work” required for those who are fully Orthodox. “Many now,” he said, “are simply not up to that.” But he added that “the future of our entire Fatherland” depends on whether this will change or not.
What matters, of course, is not so much “the external observation of doctrinal norms” as “the changes [which] take place in souls,” the archpriest said, but the future of Orthodoxy and of Russians will reflect not only the commitment and actions of believers themselves but also “the relations of the Church with society and government.”
A second Orthodox leader, Archpriest Maksim Kozlov, who serves as pastor of the church at Moscow State University, said he thought the poll results were accurate but incomplete because they did not call attention to what he says is the growing number of practicing Orthodox in cities and among the educated and the intellectual “soup” of the nominal Orthodox.
But a third Orthodox leader, Archpriest Aleksandr Lavrin, a pastor in Tsaritsyn, “expressed regret” about the high percentage of atheists identified by the poll. In his view, most of them are simply “religious indifferent.” On another matter, he pointed out that the gap the poll had found with the Orthodox had long existed among Muslims.
Regions.ru also spokes with two Muslim leaders. Mukhammedgali-khazrat Khuzin, head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Perm, said he was “sincerely glad” that more young Russians were returning to religion, but at the same time, he offered his views “ethnic” believers.
“Muslims earlier never had such a term as ‘nominal’ membership in religion,” he pointed out. “Islam defines all side of the life of a Muslim … and with us even in Soviet times, all traditions were observed. Today, the term ‘nominal Muslim’ exists, but all the same, believing Muslims are more than non-believing ones.”
But clearly the situation with Orthodoxy is different, Khuzin continued. “Unlike Islam, Orthodoxy does not define all aspects of the life of an individual, and therefore the number of nominal Orthodox is greater than the number of practicing ones,” although he expressed the hope that this will change as a result of an increase in the number of practicing Orthodox.
The other Muslim leader, Albir-khazrat Krganov, the first deputy chairman of the Central MSD and a member of the Social Chamber of the Russian Federation, said that the pattern was clear: members of various nationalities identify with the religion that has been traditional with their group regardless of what they actually think.
Among the representatives of other faiths polled, Rabbi Zinoviy Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Groups in Russia (KEROOR), said he fully agreed with the findings of the Public Opinion Foundation especially concerning the importance of Orthodoxy for Russia as a country.
He said that he had long maintained that “namely the Russian Orthodox Church unites Russia from the Kurile Islands to Kaliningrad. Russia will always be true to Orthodoxy. [And] as a patriot of Russia, I am glad of its successes and will always supporting the strengthening of our power.”
Monday, March 22, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Russia isn’t Brazil -- a Misfortune for Russians Now and in the Future, Analysts Say
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 22 – For most of the past two decades, Russian analysts have regularly drawn comparisons between their own country and Brazil. Indeed, there has been frequent discussion of “a Latin American variant” for Russia. But now, such comparisons do not show Russia to good advantage either now or in terms of the possibility of democratic reforms.
Two articles this week extend that discussion. In today’s “Vedomosti,” Vladislav Inozemtsev and Viktor Krasilshchikov compare Russian and Brazilian economic development since 1991, stressing that the very different approaches of the two systems have had very different outcomes (www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2010/03/22/228682).
And in an essay in the current issue of “New Times,” Vladimir Gelman, a professor at the European University in St. Petersburg, argues that Russia faces far greater challenges in overcoming its authoritarian political system than have Latin American countries with which it is often compared (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/17614/).
In their article, Inozemtsev and Krasilshchikov note that “at the start of the 1990s, the two powerful countries in different regions of the world suffered through difficult times.” Both had high inflation, both introduced economic reforms, both attracted and then put off investors, and “both with enormous hopes entered into the new millennium.”
But then their paths diverged. Russia under Vladimir Putin chose order, while Brazil under Cardoso and Lula da Silva chose progress. “Ten years have passed,” the two Russian writers say, “and now it is possible to reach certain conclusions.” Unfortunately, they do not favor Russia.
Russia, they say, moved toward the state control of the energy sector, while Brazil, “on the contrary, moved away from the monopoly of the state petroleum company Petrobras, having allowed 50 new oil and gas companies.” As a result, Russia is now pumping 7.4 percent less oil than in 1990, while Brazil is producing 3.1 times more.
But the oil and gas sector was not the only place where the two countries diverged. In 1994, the two produced almost the same number of cars – 1.03 million in Russia and 1.13 million in Brazil. But 15 years later, in 2009, Russia was producing fewer – only 722,000 – while Brazil had increased production to 3.18 million.
In 1996-97, the two countries produced approximately the same number of civilian aircraft – 5-8 in Russia and 4-10 in Brazil, but in 2009, Russia produced only 14 machines while Brazil manufactured 244. Moreover, today Brazil is able to satisfy 81 percent of its industrial equipment needs from domestic production, while Russia can satisfy only 40 percent of its.
Brazil, the two authors continues, “always was considered a country of social contradictions while Russia was known as one of relative equality guaranteed by the government. But now there is far greater income inequality in Russia than in Brazil, with the Russian poor much poorer relative to the rich than is the case with Brazil’s poorest.
The divergence of the two countries over the past 20 years is found in other spheres as well. “In contrast to the Russian powers that be, politicians in Brasilia understand that once cannot overcome backwardness without education and science.” They have introduced electronic government while Russia has not,
When anyone criticizes Russia for its “not impressive modernization,” he is likely to be told that “Russia is not China.” That’s true, the two authors say. Russia is “not China and will not be.” But at the start of the 1990s, it was similar to Brazil which is something that alas you would not say today.”
In the intervening period, “Brazil began the most important exporter of industrial production in its region, but Russia became the most important importer in its. Brazil has passed through four free election campaigns and is preparing for a fifth, but in Russia it is difficult to suggest how and by whom the next leader will be chosen.”
”Ten years ago,” Inozemtsev and Krasilshchikov say, “the politicians of Russia chose order, while the politicians of Brazil chose progress,” a choice that means that “today progress in Brazil is very much in evidence while order in Russia is not very much so,” exactly the opposite of what so many people expected.
This divergence over the last 20 years is going to profoundly affect Russia’s ability to move away from its current authoritarian regime, Professor Gelman says, noting that those who point to the ways in which Latin American countries have overcome authoritarian regimes as a model for Russia fail to understand just how different the two are.
“Authoritarian regimes,” Gelman points out, “overcome the crisis of legitimacy [that all of them, including Russia’s, experience] either through repression or through purchasing the loyalty of their citizens.” Moscow was able to purchase loyalty when oil revenues were high, and it will use repression if it is challenged.
Clearly the Russian powers that be face problems now, he writes, but “so far the contradictions of the Russian regime have not yet become the all-national conflicts which will lead to its fall.” That pattern of development depends on the emergence of people within the elite prepared to challenge the existing system as well as on the rise of popular opposition.
At president, the regime is “successfully dealing” with popular demonstrations, shifting the blame to regional officials and “not permitting its growing into an anti-system manifestation against the regime as a whole.” And there is good reason to think that the regime will be able to do that for some time to come.
Gelman notes that “the combination of conflicts among the elites and protests from below alone rarely leads to the destruction of authoritarianism.” For that, there must be some kind of “extra external shock,” be it “a sharp ethnic conflict, military defeat or a technogenic catastrophe of the Chernobyl type.” Predicting such things by their very nature is impossible.
In thinking about how Russia may finally go beyond its authoritarian present, many Russian commentators, Gelman continues, often look to “the Latin American experience,” given that so many countries there have shifted from military dictatorships toward democracy over the last several decades.
“It might seem,” the St. Petersburg professor says, that “the Russian regime has not a little in common with Latin American military regimes.” But “the difference between the Russian siloviki and the Latin American military bears a fundamental character,” one that makes changes in Russia far more difficult.
In Brazil or Chile, he writes, the officers, having earned a certain amount of “rent” while in power, are prepared to pass from the political scene more or less peacefully, as long as their gains are not challenged. “But for [Russia’s] siloviki, control over the economy forms the basis of their power, and they are prepared to hold on to it at any price.”
That will make any change in Russia far more difficult and potentially far more violent and radical.
Vienna, March 22 – For most of the past two decades, Russian analysts have regularly drawn comparisons between their own country and Brazil. Indeed, there has been frequent discussion of “a Latin American variant” for Russia. But now, such comparisons do not show Russia to good advantage either now or in terms of the possibility of democratic reforms.
Two articles this week extend that discussion. In today’s “Vedomosti,” Vladislav Inozemtsev and Viktor Krasilshchikov compare Russian and Brazilian economic development since 1991, stressing that the very different approaches of the two systems have had very different outcomes (www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2010/03/22/228682).
And in an essay in the current issue of “New Times,” Vladimir Gelman, a professor at the European University in St. Petersburg, argues that Russia faces far greater challenges in overcoming its authoritarian political system than have Latin American countries with which it is often compared (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/17614/).
In their article, Inozemtsev and Krasilshchikov note that “at the start of the 1990s, the two powerful countries in different regions of the world suffered through difficult times.” Both had high inflation, both introduced economic reforms, both attracted and then put off investors, and “both with enormous hopes entered into the new millennium.”
But then their paths diverged. Russia under Vladimir Putin chose order, while Brazil under Cardoso and Lula da Silva chose progress. “Ten years have passed,” the two Russian writers say, “and now it is possible to reach certain conclusions.” Unfortunately, they do not favor Russia.
Russia, they say, moved toward the state control of the energy sector, while Brazil, “on the contrary, moved away from the monopoly of the state petroleum company Petrobras, having allowed 50 new oil and gas companies.” As a result, Russia is now pumping 7.4 percent less oil than in 1990, while Brazil is producing 3.1 times more.
But the oil and gas sector was not the only place where the two countries diverged. In 1994, the two produced almost the same number of cars – 1.03 million in Russia and 1.13 million in Brazil. But 15 years later, in 2009, Russia was producing fewer – only 722,000 – while Brazil had increased production to 3.18 million.
In 1996-97, the two countries produced approximately the same number of civilian aircraft – 5-8 in Russia and 4-10 in Brazil, but in 2009, Russia produced only 14 machines while Brazil manufactured 244. Moreover, today Brazil is able to satisfy 81 percent of its industrial equipment needs from domestic production, while Russia can satisfy only 40 percent of its.
Brazil, the two authors continues, “always was considered a country of social contradictions while Russia was known as one of relative equality guaranteed by the government. But now there is far greater income inequality in Russia than in Brazil, with the Russian poor much poorer relative to the rich than is the case with Brazil’s poorest.
The divergence of the two countries over the past 20 years is found in other spheres as well. “In contrast to the Russian powers that be, politicians in Brasilia understand that once cannot overcome backwardness without education and science.” They have introduced electronic government while Russia has not,
When anyone criticizes Russia for its “not impressive modernization,” he is likely to be told that “Russia is not China.” That’s true, the two authors say. Russia is “not China and will not be.” But at the start of the 1990s, it was similar to Brazil which is something that alas you would not say today.”
In the intervening period, “Brazil began the most important exporter of industrial production in its region, but Russia became the most important importer in its. Brazil has passed through four free election campaigns and is preparing for a fifth, but in Russia it is difficult to suggest how and by whom the next leader will be chosen.”
”Ten years ago,” Inozemtsev and Krasilshchikov say, “the politicians of Russia chose order, while the politicians of Brazil chose progress,” a choice that means that “today progress in Brazil is very much in evidence while order in Russia is not very much so,” exactly the opposite of what so many people expected.
This divergence over the last 20 years is going to profoundly affect Russia’s ability to move away from its current authoritarian regime, Professor Gelman says, noting that those who point to the ways in which Latin American countries have overcome authoritarian regimes as a model for Russia fail to understand just how different the two are.
“Authoritarian regimes,” Gelman points out, “overcome the crisis of legitimacy [that all of them, including Russia’s, experience] either through repression or through purchasing the loyalty of their citizens.” Moscow was able to purchase loyalty when oil revenues were high, and it will use repression if it is challenged.
Clearly the Russian powers that be face problems now, he writes, but “so far the contradictions of the Russian regime have not yet become the all-national conflicts which will lead to its fall.” That pattern of development depends on the emergence of people within the elite prepared to challenge the existing system as well as on the rise of popular opposition.
At president, the regime is “successfully dealing” with popular demonstrations, shifting the blame to regional officials and “not permitting its growing into an anti-system manifestation against the regime as a whole.” And there is good reason to think that the regime will be able to do that for some time to come.
Gelman notes that “the combination of conflicts among the elites and protests from below alone rarely leads to the destruction of authoritarianism.” For that, there must be some kind of “extra external shock,” be it “a sharp ethnic conflict, military defeat or a technogenic catastrophe of the Chernobyl type.” Predicting such things by their very nature is impossible.
In thinking about how Russia may finally go beyond its authoritarian present, many Russian commentators, Gelman continues, often look to “the Latin American experience,” given that so many countries there have shifted from military dictatorships toward democracy over the last several decades.
“It might seem,” the St. Petersburg professor says, that “the Russian regime has not a little in common with Latin American military regimes.” But “the difference between the Russian siloviki and the Latin American military bears a fundamental character,” one that makes changes in Russia far more difficult.
In Brazil or Chile, he writes, the officers, having earned a certain amount of “rent” while in power, are prepared to pass from the political scene more or less peacefully, as long as their gains are not challenged. “But for [Russia’s] siloviki, control over the economy forms the basis of their power, and they are prepared to hold on to it at any price.”
That will make any change in Russia far more difficult and potentially far more violent and radical.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Plans to Cut Number of ‘Compatriots Abroad’ by Changing Russian Law
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 22 – The Russian government has sent to the Duma a draft bill that would significantly reduce the number of people living abroad whom Moscow considers to be its “compatriots,” a move that may reduce tensions with some former Soviet republics but that will anger many Russian nationalists and some non-Russians as well.
Yesterday, Russian news agencies reported, the Russian government sent to the Duma draft legislation that will change the legal definition of “compatriot abroad,” eliminating the current provision of the law that automatically included in that category all those who had lived in the former Soviet Union (www.regnum.ru/news/1265205.html).
In forwarding the draft, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the new definition does not mean that Moscow will not “in case of need” extend “humanitarian assistance” to such people or that Moscow will not support “the preservation of the Russian ethno-cultural space by the use not only of the possibilities of the federal center but also by subjects of the federation.”
If adopted, the category of Russian “compatriot” will include “citizens of the Russian Federation living abroad and also persons living beyond the borders of the Russian Federation ‘who have made a free choice in favor of a spiritual and cultural tie with Russia, which relates as a rule to peoples which have historically lived on the territory of the country.”
In short, the foreign minister continued, someone will be classed by the Russian government as “a compatriot abroad” on the basis of “the principle of self-identification which is strengthened by corresponding social or professional activity” rather on the basis of birth or ancestry.
That represents a major shift. Up to now, Moscow defines “Russian compatriots” as including “all without exception” those born in the Russian Empire, the Russian Republic of 1917, and the USSR and their direct descendents, regardless of nationality or self-identification, the Regnum news agency continues.
On the one hand, this would bring Russian law into line with Russian foreign ministry practice, the news agency says, given that in recent years, Russian representatives abroad have defined as “compatriots, above all, Russian citizens abroad and a narrow circle of activists of Russian-language public organizations, the so-called ‘professional Russians.’”
But on the other, approval of this proposal, which is far from certain, would have three additional consequences, some of which its authors may have intended and others which are certain to create problems and spark debate among Russian nationalists within and beyond the borders of the Russian Federation as well as a number of non-Russian groups.
First, such a definition, as Regnum points out, will “liberate” the foreign ministry from defending all “the humanitarian and political rights of Russians abroad and especially in the near abroad’ – the term many still use for the former Soviet republics -- and from having to deal with Russian nationalist groups both within the Russian Federation and especially abroad.
Second, by linking self-identification to activity on behalf of the community, the new definition will simultaneously reduce the total number of people abroad in this category even as it prompts nationalist organizers to insist that people who could fall in this category assume a more active stance in order to be sure that they do.
Thus, the revision would mean in the case of Crimea, the Regnum news agency continues, that “only those of its residents will be recognized as ‘compatriots’ and defended by Russia who not simply speak Russia and consider themselves Russians, despite Ukrainian citizenship but also as a minimum are involved in a choral group at the Russian consulate.”
That would please likely please Ukrainians and the Ukrainian government, and it would certainly make the life of Russian diplomats easier, but it would certainly infuriate those both in places like Ukraine and elsewhere and in Russia itself who hope to sustain and promote what they see as a broader “Russian world” in the hopes of ultimately restoring a larger Russian state.
And third, this revision could dramatically affect a few non-Russian groups, some of whose members have been seeking the right of return for their compatriots abroad. Indeed, it is quite possible that a rising tide of demands by Circassians in this regard may explain the timing and shape of the current Russian government proposal.
Over the last several years, Circassians in the North Caucasus have sought to have their co-ethnics abroad defined as compatriots and thus included in the groups enjoying government support for repatriation. Moscow has resisted doing that, and if the new definition of compatriot goes through, the Circassians will be deprived of perhaps their strongest legal arguments.
Consequently, debate over this measure, which is likely to be intense, will find Russian nationalists among both its supporters and its opponents, something that will put the government itself in some difficulty as it simultaneously seeks to portray itself as a defender of ethnic Russians and tries to find a new modus vivendi with neighboring states.
Vienna, March 22 – The Russian government has sent to the Duma a draft bill that would significantly reduce the number of people living abroad whom Moscow considers to be its “compatriots,” a move that may reduce tensions with some former Soviet republics but that will anger many Russian nationalists and some non-Russians as well.
Yesterday, Russian news agencies reported, the Russian government sent to the Duma draft legislation that will change the legal definition of “compatriot abroad,” eliminating the current provision of the law that automatically included in that category all those who had lived in the former Soviet Union (www.regnum.ru/news/1265205.html).
In forwarding the draft, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the new definition does not mean that Moscow will not “in case of need” extend “humanitarian assistance” to such people or that Moscow will not support “the preservation of the Russian ethno-cultural space by the use not only of the possibilities of the federal center but also by subjects of the federation.”
If adopted, the category of Russian “compatriot” will include “citizens of the Russian Federation living abroad and also persons living beyond the borders of the Russian Federation ‘who have made a free choice in favor of a spiritual and cultural tie with Russia, which relates as a rule to peoples which have historically lived on the territory of the country.”
In short, the foreign minister continued, someone will be classed by the Russian government as “a compatriot abroad” on the basis of “the principle of self-identification which is strengthened by corresponding social or professional activity” rather on the basis of birth or ancestry.
That represents a major shift. Up to now, Moscow defines “Russian compatriots” as including “all without exception” those born in the Russian Empire, the Russian Republic of 1917, and the USSR and their direct descendents, regardless of nationality or self-identification, the Regnum news agency continues.
On the one hand, this would bring Russian law into line with Russian foreign ministry practice, the news agency says, given that in recent years, Russian representatives abroad have defined as “compatriots, above all, Russian citizens abroad and a narrow circle of activists of Russian-language public organizations, the so-called ‘professional Russians.’”
But on the other, approval of this proposal, which is far from certain, would have three additional consequences, some of which its authors may have intended and others which are certain to create problems and spark debate among Russian nationalists within and beyond the borders of the Russian Federation as well as a number of non-Russian groups.
First, such a definition, as Regnum points out, will “liberate” the foreign ministry from defending all “the humanitarian and political rights of Russians abroad and especially in the near abroad’ – the term many still use for the former Soviet republics -- and from having to deal with Russian nationalist groups both within the Russian Federation and especially abroad.
Second, by linking self-identification to activity on behalf of the community, the new definition will simultaneously reduce the total number of people abroad in this category even as it prompts nationalist organizers to insist that people who could fall in this category assume a more active stance in order to be sure that they do.
Thus, the revision would mean in the case of Crimea, the Regnum news agency continues, that “only those of its residents will be recognized as ‘compatriots’ and defended by Russia who not simply speak Russia and consider themselves Russians, despite Ukrainian citizenship but also as a minimum are involved in a choral group at the Russian consulate.”
That would please likely please Ukrainians and the Ukrainian government, and it would certainly make the life of Russian diplomats easier, but it would certainly infuriate those both in places like Ukraine and elsewhere and in Russia itself who hope to sustain and promote what they see as a broader “Russian world” in the hopes of ultimately restoring a larger Russian state.
And third, this revision could dramatically affect a few non-Russian groups, some of whose members have been seeking the right of return for their compatriots abroad. Indeed, it is quite possible that a rising tide of demands by Circassians in this regard may explain the timing and shape of the current Russian government proposal.
Over the last several years, Circassians in the North Caucasus have sought to have their co-ethnics abroad defined as compatriots and thus included in the groups enjoying government support for repatriation. Moscow has resisted doing that, and if the new definition of compatriot goes through, the Circassians will be deprived of perhaps their strongest legal arguments.
Consequently, debate over this measure, which is likely to be intense, will find Russian nationalists among both its supporters and its opponents, something that will put the government itself in some difficulty as it simultaneously seeks to portray itself as a defender of ethnic Russians and tries to find a new modus vivendi with neighboring states.
Window on Eurasia: ‘Illegal Armed Formations’ Far Outnumber ‘Bandit Underground’ in North Caucasus, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 22 – The number and size of “illegal armed formations” vastly exceeds that of “the bandit underground” in the North Caucasus, even though many Russian officials use the terms interchangeably, according to a Moscow investigative journalist who spent several months gathering information on the Caucasus Imamate.
And that confusion is part of Moscow’s more general problem with the region, Olga Bobrova says in a three-part article in “Novaya gazeta, its continuing tendency to deal with that region in black and white stereotypes and to discourage efforts to comprehend the complexities that Russia faces there.
Bobrova’s study, which explicitly seeks to replace these stereotypes with a true portrait of the situation, may represent and the thoughtful and comprehensive description of the situation yet provided to Russian readers of the media (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/022/13.html, www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/024/18.html, www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/027/18.html).
Among the most important points Bobrova makes in her articles which are collectively titled “The Imamate of the Caucasus. A State Which Does Not Exist” – and her detailed discussion of each of them and perhaps especially of the biographies of those involved are beyond the scope of this summary – are the following:
First of all and as others have done, the “Novaya gazeta” journalist stresses just how much the militant “underground” has changed over the past two decades. Its internal structure has been transformed, with independent groups increasingly linked together in a “flexible network structure,” which allow it to conduct often successful military actions.
Its financing has changed from relying on getting what it needed by stealing or trading with Russian forces to receiving “support from sympathetic brothers from all ends of the earth and also thanks to the broad support of the local population.” It has shifted its tactics from open military clashes to “diversionary war.”
Its possibilities have changed as well, Bobrova writes. “If earlier commanders of the underground propagandized their ideas exclusively by personal example, now, the militants ever more actively use Internet technology,” including YouTube roles, to promote their ideas, gain recruits, and organize resistance.
And “the most important thing” is that the underground’s ideology has changed. In place of national self-determination has emerged “a new religious idea,” which seeks “the separation from Russia of the entire Caucasus and the creation on this territory of an independent Islamic state which lives according to shariat laws.”
The “Islamization of the underground, Bobrova writes, although it attracted more people to its cause and brought with it “the threat of penetration into the depths of the country,” has been much to the benefit of the Russian Federation in at least two ways. On the one hand, it has cost the underground attention and support in the West.
And on the other, this shift means that “the present-day Caucasus underground has dropped out of the political context” as a result of which “Russia is now fighting against inadequate religious fanatics” rather than secular military officers with Soviet training or skilled and more secular politicians.
But if that works to Russia’s benefit, Bobrova continues, there are other aspects of the development of the underground “Islamic ‘state’” which do not. It is much better and more broadly organized, it offers its members genuine promotion opportunities, and it has better communications and in many cases better supplies.
Most importantly, she continues, “For a significant part of the Caucasus population, the institutions of the Caucasus Imamate are no less objective and visible than the analogous [state] institutions. To the secular courts are counterpoised the shariat ones. [And] new recruits fill the number forest detachments much more willingly than they do the ranks of the Russian Army.”
Indeed, because the imamate is structured so that there is not only a hierarchy that overreaches the government one but also a physical presence in every village in the region. Consequently, “about them in the villages people describe them as the night ruler,” an indication that Moscow no longer controls the situation after the sun goes down.
Second, Bobrova argues that “in assessing the scale of the activity of the forest detachments, one must keep in mind the difference between the terms ‘bandit underground’ and ‘illegal armed formation.’” That is something few people in Russia do be they officials, journalists, or ordinary citizens.
In the North Caucasus today, she says, there are “hundreds of petty armies” or “illegal armed formations,” “but not every illegal armed formation is part of the bandit underground.” As a consequence and regardless of what anyone says, “the underground itself is significantly less numerous.”
“Almost every more or less visible Caucasus official or businessman has a small army,” Bobrova says, citing numerous examples of what she has in mind. Indeed, she says, “the personal guard of many Caucasus presidents and other big people if one views these formations through the prism of the law are also illegal armed formations.”
That means, Bobrova continues, that “many murders – and the militia does not hide this – take place on a commercial basis.” And even when the militia discovers a Wahhabi trace, “this does not mean that the Wahhabis acted on their own initiative.” Instead, those involved may have hired themselves out to raise money.
Indeed, “removing enemies and competitors is one of the services which the underground offers to prominent people in the Caucasus republics.” But Bobrova adds that an additional “source of heightened mortality” in the Caucasus – the law enforcement structures themselves – may be “the most significant,” killing openly or “masking” themselves as bandits.
And that brings Bobrova to her third point: Russian law enforcement personnel who try to “fight under the underground openly and by observing all procedural rules encounter the reality of the incapacity of the government machinery,” an encounter that convinces many of them to take things into their own hands.
The Moscow journalist notes that if the militia encounter someone in the North Caucasus even if that person is armed cannot be sure that he will be convicted or if convicted sent to prison. Many are given conditional sentences and others get out after only a relatively brief incarceration.
Knowing that even under the best case scenario, those they arrest will be released “after a couple of years and again go into the forest with much hotter hatred to [Russian forces] than before, many Russian law enforcement officers prefer to serve as judge, jury and executioner lest they be confronted by someone they’ve arrested again in the future.
Such actions, of course, undermine the authorities of the powers that be and are part of a more general problem: the underground and the special services are intertwined by fate, something that “is neither good nor bad; it simply is.” But there is another serious aspect to this: Russia’s special forces have helped to create the enemy that they are trying to defeat.
Evidence of that and of the corrosive role it plays is the following disturbing fact: “all the terrorists killed in the course of the storming of the Beslan school in the course of their lives had close relations with the militia and the FSB,” a major reason perhaps why the Russian authorities insisted on killing all of them.
Bobrova concludes that Russians “know so little about the Imamate only because they do not want to know about it: Any interest in the underground among [Russians] is equated to sympathy. Or what is worse, to complicity.” But her examination has convinced her that “wisdom and consistency” will serve as “the chief weapon against the underground.”
At the very least, Russians must get over their propensity to view the conflict in black and white or even worse holding totally contradictory ideas about it at the same time. Thus, the views of many Russians that there are only a few “bandits” and that the entire North Caucasus is against Russia are both false and make winning almost impossible.
Vienna, March 22 – The number and size of “illegal armed formations” vastly exceeds that of “the bandit underground” in the North Caucasus, even though many Russian officials use the terms interchangeably, according to a Moscow investigative journalist who spent several months gathering information on the Caucasus Imamate.
And that confusion is part of Moscow’s more general problem with the region, Olga Bobrova says in a three-part article in “Novaya gazeta, its continuing tendency to deal with that region in black and white stereotypes and to discourage efforts to comprehend the complexities that Russia faces there.
Bobrova’s study, which explicitly seeks to replace these stereotypes with a true portrait of the situation, may represent and the thoughtful and comprehensive description of the situation yet provided to Russian readers of the media (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/022/13.html, www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/024/18.html, www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/027/18.html).
Among the most important points Bobrova makes in her articles which are collectively titled “The Imamate of the Caucasus. A State Which Does Not Exist” – and her detailed discussion of each of them and perhaps especially of the biographies of those involved are beyond the scope of this summary – are the following:
First of all and as others have done, the “Novaya gazeta” journalist stresses just how much the militant “underground” has changed over the past two decades. Its internal structure has been transformed, with independent groups increasingly linked together in a “flexible network structure,” which allow it to conduct often successful military actions.
Its financing has changed from relying on getting what it needed by stealing or trading with Russian forces to receiving “support from sympathetic brothers from all ends of the earth and also thanks to the broad support of the local population.” It has shifted its tactics from open military clashes to “diversionary war.”
Its possibilities have changed as well, Bobrova writes. “If earlier commanders of the underground propagandized their ideas exclusively by personal example, now, the militants ever more actively use Internet technology,” including YouTube roles, to promote their ideas, gain recruits, and organize resistance.
And “the most important thing” is that the underground’s ideology has changed. In place of national self-determination has emerged “a new religious idea,” which seeks “the separation from Russia of the entire Caucasus and the creation on this territory of an independent Islamic state which lives according to shariat laws.”
The “Islamization of the underground, Bobrova writes, although it attracted more people to its cause and brought with it “the threat of penetration into the depths of the country,” has been much to the benefit of the Russian Federation in at least two ways. On the one hand, it has cost the underground attention and support in the West.
And on the other, this shift means that “the present-day Caucasus underground has dropped out of the political context” as a result of which “Russia is now fighting against inadequate religious fanatics” rather than secular military officers with Soviet training or skilled and more secular politicians.
But if that works to Russia’s benefit, Bobrova continues, there are other aspects of the development of the underground “Islamic ‘state’” which do not. It is much better and more broadly organized, it offers its members genuine promotion opportunities, and it has better communications and in many cases better supplies.
Most importantly, she continues, “For a significant part of the Caucasus population, the institutions of the Caucasus Imamate are no less objective and visible than the analogous [state] institutions. To the secular courts are counterpoised the shariat ones. [And] new recruits fill the number forest detachments much more willingly than they do the ranks of the Russian Army.”
Indeed, because the imamate is structured so that there is not only a hierarchy that overreaches the government one but also a physical presence in every village in the region. Consequently, “about them in the villages people describe them as the night ruler,” an indication that Moscow no longer controls the situation after the sun goes down.
Second, Bobrova argues that “in assessing the scale of the activity of the forest detachments, one must keep in mind the difference between the terms ‘bandit underground’ and ‘illegal armed formation.’” That is something few people in Russia do be they officials, journalists, or ordinary citizens.
In the North Caucasus today, she says, there are “hundreds of petty armies” or “illegal armed formations,” “but not every illegal armed formation is part of the bandit underground.” As a consequence and regardless of what anyone says, “the underground itself is significantly less numerous.”
“Almost every more or less visible Caucasus official or businessman has a small army,” Bobrova says, citing numerous examples of what she has in mind. Indeed, she says, “the personal guard of many Caucasus presidents and other big people if one views these formations through the prism of the law are also illegal armed formations.”
That means, Bobrova continues, that “many murders – and the militia does not hide this – take place on a commercial basis.” And even when the militia discovers a Wahhabi trace, “this does not mean that the Wahhabis acted on their own initiative.” Instead, those involved may have hired themselves out to raise money.
Indeed, “removing enemies and competitors is one of the services which the underground offers to prominent people in the Caucasus republics.” But Bobrova adds that an additional “source of heightened mortality” in the Caucasus – the law enforcement structures themselves – may be “the most significant,” killing openly or “masking” themselves as bandits.
And that brings Bobrova to her third point: Russian law enforcement personnel who try to “fight under the underground openly and by observing all procedural rules encounter the reality of the incapacity of the government machinery,” an encounter that convinces many of them to take things into their own hands.
The Moscow journalist notes that if the militia encounter someone in the North Caucasus even if that person is armed cannot be sure that he will be convicted or if convicted sent to prison. Many are given conditional sentences and others get out after only a relatively brief incarceration.
Knowing that even under the best case scenario, those they arrest will be released “after a couple of years and again go into the forest with much hotter hatred to [Russian forces] than before, many Russian law enforcement officers prefer to serve as judge, jury and executioner lest they be confronted by someone they’ve arrested again in the future.
Such actions, of course, undermine the authorities of the powers that be and are part of a more general problem: the underground and the special services are intertwined by fate, something that “is neither good nor bad; it simply is.” But there is another serious aspect to this: Russia’s special forces have helped to create the enemy that they are trying to defeat.
Evidence of that and of the corrosive role it plays is the following disturbing fact: “all the terrorists killed in the course of the storming of the Beslan school in the course of their lives had close relations with the militia and the FSB,” a major reason perhaps why the Russian authorities insisted on killing all of them.
Bobrova concludes that Russians “know so little about the Imamate only because they do not want to know about it: Any interest in the underground among [Russians] is equated to sympathy. Or what is worse, to complicity.” But her examination has convinced her that “wisdom and consistency” will serve as “the chief weapon against the underground.”
At the very least, Russians must get over their propensity to view the conflict in black and white or even worse holding totally contradictory ideas about it at the same time. Thus, the views of many Russians that there are only a few “bandits” and that the entire North Caucasus is against Russia are both false and make winning almost impossible.
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