By Gordon M. Hahn
This week saw the New York Times’ and Washington Post’s continuation of their tradition of allowing only those articles and opeds that paint the worst picture of Russia and–– occluding from the American public the positive changes occurring in Russia under President Dmitrii Medvedev in tandem with former president Vladimir Putin, his Prime Minister.
First there was the Washington Post oped piece by Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Center. She opined that “The rift between Vladimir Putin and incumbent Dmitry Medvedev is growing, says a well-known pundit. Medvedev has become a symbol of change, an influential journalist assures us. Quite a few are betting on Medvedev as a pro-Western reformer. This is just what Putin, now prime minister, needs as he prepares for the March 2012 election: Let the world think that a competition is underway in Moscow. Let the world believe that Medvedev has a chance. Let the world hope that Medvedev is a liberal” (Lilia Shevtsova, “Putin's best trick yet,” Washington Post, 22 May 22, 2011).
This Shevtsova piece reminds me of many sovietological denials of Gorbachev’s reformist orientation in the mid-1980s. If one substitutes Medvedev for Mikhail Gorbachev and Yegor Ligachev for Putin, one sees the same denial of reformism, of differences between the principals, and claims that the authorities are feigning competition and conflict. I am not saying that Medvedev and Putin are competing yet or that Medvedev will move as quickly or, in the near-term, as sharply from the status quo as did Gorbachev. However, if the USSR could experience crypto-political competitition within the bowels of its rigid party-state apparatus, then surely the pluralist, if still largely undemocratic Russian political system, can change and harbor political divisions and contestation.
Shevtsova’s denial that there are reforms going on in Russia is equally untenable. The following is a list of changes in Kremlin policy since the inception of the tandem and Medvedev presidency in 2008 with links where possible to just some of the ROPV articles on the domestic reforms in which I provided not simply declared opinion but rather specific details based on concrete data and primary and secondary sources:
Domestic Reforms:
- anti-corruption legislation www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/05/thaw-continues-will-the-tandem.html#more; www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/03/the-medvedev-thaw-and-early-regime-elite-split-continue.html#more; www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2010/12/the-state-of-russia-the-thaw-and-the-criminalitycorruption-crisis.html
- MVD reform www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/02/russias-mvd-reform-the-new-law-on-the-police.html; www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/02/russias-mvd-reform-the-new-law-on-the-police.html#more
- prison system reform www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/04/debunking-medvedevs-alleged-gap-between-word-and-deed-the-legal-reforms.html#more;
- adoption of a new law requiring the release of terminally ill suspects from custody
- sentencing reform www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/04/debunking-medvedevs-alleged-gap-between-word-and-deed-the-legal-reforms.html#more
- judicial reform www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/04/debunking-medvedevs-alleged-gap-between-word-and-deed-the-legal-reforms.html#more; www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/05/thaw-continues-will-the-tandem.html; www.kommersant.ru/doc/1626277
- the subordination of the siloviki (MVD, FSB, and prosecutors) to regional governors
- reducing the number of siloviki in government www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/02/the-decline-of-siloviki-and-the-rise-of-the-medvedev-tandem.html#more
- Moscow allowing opposition demonstrations (albeit with frequent detentions) www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2010/11/the-thaw-continues.html; www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/01/russia-2010-summing-up-the-year-for-the-thaw-and-the-tandem.html
- crackdown on nationalist/skinhead groups www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2010/12/article-critique-response-to-the-washington-posts-moscow-clashes-put-authorities-in-a-quandary-by-will-englund-december-1.html; www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2011/05/thaw-continues-will-the-tandem.html
- use of soft power and investments in the local economy in the war against Caucasus jihadists www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2010/08/russias-thawthrough-the-north-caucasus-prism.html
- a major economic de-nationalization (privatization) process
- removal of state officials set for 1,000 state-owned or partially state-owned companies
- more glasnost’ in state media and a proposal for a de-Stalinization educational campaign
- minor reforms to the political system, including:
- parties winning regional elections, rather than the federal district presidential envoys and the presidential administration, now propose to the Russian president the candidates for governor in the regions
- regional legislatures were empowered to remove regional governors from office
- a law passed ensuring multi-party representation in municipal government
- a law passed making the Federation Council a body of elected representatives from regional or municipal legislatures.
Foreign policy changes:
- opening a high-volume Northern Transit Route through Russia and Central Asia to supply U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan
- anti-narcotics cooperation in Afghanistan
- financial and humanitarian assistance to Afghan government
- increased anti-terrorism cooperation
- cessation of Russian sales of S-300 and all other weapons to Iran
- greater cooperation on Iran sanctions in UN
- border delimitation with Norway agreed after 40-year dispute
- rapprochement with Poland by recognizing Katyn massacre and transparent investigation of 2010 Polish plane crash that killed Polich leaders
- refusal of Kyrgyzstan’s request for Russian troops and cooperation with the U.S. during the June 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis
- the New START Treaty
- agreement on trying to cooperate in building missile defense for Europe and Eurasia
- agreement at the May G-8 that Muammar Gaddafi must step down.
Shevtsova ignores all of these reforms. She claims Medvedev has backtracked from democracy further than his predecesor by “expanding the powers for law enforcement agencies” and “the state's ability to repress.” No specifics are given, and she omits the reform of the MVD requiring, among much else, that police read Miranda rights to detainees and the reduction in the number law enforcement agencies (siloviki) in government. She mentions the “violent dispersal of rallies in defense of the constitution and beatings of the opposition,” but neglects to mention that the regime is now granting permission to hold demonstrations and that recent demonstrations by the democratic opposition have proceeded without fisticuffs or even temporary detentions. She mentions Medvedev’s lengthening of the presidential term to six years. There is nothing inherently undemocratic about such a policy, if Russian elections are made free and fair. The prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovskii in the Yukos case and the corruption she claims became “a way of life here” “during his presidency,” are actually long-standing processes. The latter is extremely difficult to erase no matter what the policy or regime, and the former a politically risky process to terminate. Regardless, the persistence of some policies is no argument that changes have not occurred in others.
Shevtsova is equally off base in her analysis of Medvedev’s foreign policy. In fact, Mevedev’s declared policy has been radically transformed, and actual policy has significantly shifted. Hence, Shevtsova’s examples to the contrary range from weak to absurd, especially compared to the list I provide above: “Medvedev who presented himself as a ‘war president’ and took responsibility for the Russia-Georgia conflict. It was Medvedev who threatened Ukraine and its former president Viktor Yushchenko. It was Medvedev who opened the spat with Japan about the Kuril Islands. And it was Medvedev who speculated when the Arab uprisings began that ‘certain forces were preparing the same thing for Russia.’”
In fact, Medvedev took no responsibility for causing the conflict; he and the facts affirm that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili started war operations; though, to be sure, the Ossetians, the U.S. and, yes, Russia share some of the blame. Medvedev’s arguably though not necessarily inappropriate statements on Ukraine, Japan, and the Arab spring do not amount to policy. As a famous person once said: ‘Don’t watch what they say, watch they do.”
In light of the fact that it has been just twenty years since Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms sparked a revolutionary overthrow of the Soviet regime from above and, Shevtsova’s assertion that “(t)he impression that the Russian leader will impose reform from above will only demoralize society and weaken political protests,” rings hollow if not odd. Shevtsova may prove correct in forecasting that Putin is returning to the presidency, but that remains to be seen and, in this observer’s view, is likely to prove wrong.
All this is not to say that the Medvedev-Putin tandem has democratized Russia yet or that it is allying with the West. Russia remains soft authoritarian and on occasion undertakes foreign ventures that are less than responsible from the standpoint of international security and, yes, they defy U.S. interests at times (Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, weapons to Venezuela, for example). However, as I noted more than three years ago, a gradual liberalization process has begun and is likely to lead to democratization and Westernization over the mid- to long-term (10-20 years) should the political and economic situation remain stable (Gordon M. Hahn, “Is A Russian Thaw Coming?,” Russia: Other Points of View, April 18, 2008). Nor is it to criticize Shevtsova, who is a qualified and leading expert on Russia and is entitled to her point of view. But she is also a bitter opponent of the present Russian regime, and for the WP’s and NYT’s purposes, this is her most important qualification.
The point is that U.S. mainstream media will not permit an alternative point of view of Russia to be printed on its pages. The constant printing of a single view would be acceptable, if these national papers also printed a countering point of view, describing reforms begun since 2008 and the freedom Russians enjoy compared to many other peoples around the world.
Let the Carnegie Endowment and Shevtsova write what they please, sitting just miles from the Kremlin in Moscow. However, if they were in China, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other more authoritarian regimes, these topics or points of view would never see print.
The NYT’s ‘news’ the same week consisted of another article by a different Russian opposition figure. This one discussed his suspicions that the FSB may have been following him (Valery Panyushkin, “Was It Something I Wrote?,” New York Times, 22 May 2011). To this, the NYT added a truly mind-boggling article by the NYT’s Moscow correspondent Ellen Barry ridiculing a Texan’s “man crush” on, and correspondence with Putin (Ellen Barry, “Texas Blogger's 'Man Crush' on Putin Leads to Lengthy Heart to Heart,” New York Times, May 22, 2011). Such ‘breaking news’ seems to trump the public’s need to have more than one point of view on Russia.
Readers may recall that this is the same Ellen Barry who telephoned the present author a year ago wanting to ‘learn about the Caucasus Emirate’ mujahedin (see Gordon M. Hahn, “Puff the Magic Suicide Bombers,” Russia – Other Points of View, 20 July 2010.) No article has yet to appear by Ellen, the NYT or any other U.S. mainstream media discussing the CE mujahedin’s role in the ‘violence in the North Caucasus’(which all of the above only attribute to Russian misbehavior). Presumably, in the NYT’s august editorial office, the news value of a Texan’s Putin ‘man crush’ trumps not only Russian reforms but jihadi terrorism that has killed or wounded some 4,000 people in Russia just since October 2007.
Given all this, can the NYT and WP be regarded as legitimate news organizations in their Russia reporting? I think not. News organizations’ responsibilities are to offer information and a wide range of opinions and then let the users make up their own minds. The NYT’s and WP’s Russia reporting operates on a different principle. They permit only one point of view on their oped pages. In short, they function as a propaganda organ. This amounts to nothing less than journalistic malpractice of the most egregious sort.
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