Some waking up, others in denial
By Gordon M. Hahn
Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev’s speech to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17th raised some eyebrows that are normally frowned, since they usually condemn Russia more than other more authoritarian countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Medvedev announced explicitly for the first time that Russia is abandoning “state capitalism” and that he has chosen a system in which “private entrepreneurship and private investment should dominate.” Noting that Putin’s nationalization of property and centralization of power may have been necessary in response to the chaos caused by perestroika and the post-perestroika years of anarchic and then oligarchic power. Then he added: “Yes, old mistakes were removed, but new ones were added” (“Dmitrii Medvedev vystupil na zasedanii Peterburgskogo mezhdunarodnogo ekonomicheskogo foruma,” 17 June 2011).
This news was matched by an order to the government to increase the degree of denationalization in the 2012-2014 privatization campaign. Later, Medvedev’s top economic advisor announced that the minimum level of denationalization for the three- to five-year plan would be R450 billion per year (“Privatization Revenue For 2012-2014 Should Come to At Least 450 Bln Rubles a Year - Dvorkovich,” Interfax, 17 June 2011, www.interfax.ru).
Medvedev also called for a rollback of Putin’s anti-federative counter-reforms, announcing plans for a major “decentralization” of power with the goal of devolving power from the federal and regional governments to the municipal and district levels. Medvedev even uttered a phrase that I believe no other Russian politician in history ever used – “publichnaya vlast” or public power. These reforms would be a major step forward in Medvedev’s already impressive, though still modest reformism that we predicted in April 2008 would unfold very gradually (“Is A Russian ‘Thaw’ Coming?,” Russia: Other Points of View, 18 April 2008).
U.S.mainstream media responses were mixed, that is, in some cases shockingly positive relative to the past. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) took Medvedev’s Petersburg speech seriously, covering it in some detail and acknowledging “Mr. Medvedev's promise of decentralization and liberalization runs largely counter to the trend of economic policy during Mr. Putin's presidency between 2000 and 2008” (Geoffrey T. Smith and Alexander Kolyandr, “Medvedev Pledges Economic Reforms,” Wall Street Journal, 17 June 2011). In an earlier article, WSJ noted “reform is in the air” (Julian Evans, “Sparring Partners - Reform is in the air as Russia's leading men position themselves for the 2012 elections,” Wall Sreet Journal Europe, 16 June 2011). Although this is limited glasnost and does not even hint at the kinds of reform that Medvedev has been slowly but surely implementing over the last three years and that still have had little mention at all in the WSJ. Nonetheless, it is a small step in the right direction.
Other U.S.mainstream media reactions were more typically retrograde and russophobic, despite the ongoing Russian liberalization process (for a brief overview of Medvedev’s reforms, see Gordon M. Hahn, “The New York Times and Washington Post – All the Bias That’s Fit to Print,” Russia – Other Points of View). This is hardly surprising since the Washington Post, New York Times, and until recently the Wall Street Journal, have worked diligently to keep the facts regarding the liberalizing direction of Russia’s domestic and foreign policy from the American public.
The Washington Post (WP), the leader of this effort, buried Medvedev’s Petersburg speech, merely carrying an Associated Press article on its website’s business page. Its own response was a call for limiting trade and contacts with Russia and denying Moscow the same WTO status that the near totalitarian Beijing communists enjoy. In addition, it called for passage of a bill introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) which would allow any congressman to propose banning the travel by any Russian official to the U.S. and require the State Department to respond to such proposals within 30 days.
In doing so, WP editors offered blatant lies. First, it claimed: “Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev have done nothing to rein in the endemic lawlessness of their regime.” They ignored the anti-corruption campaign and MVD police reforms as usual, despite the massive arrests and firings of major police and other Russian officials in recent months (covered in some detail this month at ROPV (for more on the success of the anti-corruption campaign see )
Second, the WP’s editors wrote: “(A) 37-year-old Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky died in prison in 2009 after he uncovered a $230 million fraud involving Russian tax and interior ministry officials. Those same officials had him imprisoned and subjected to mistreatment that caused his death. Though the government later acknowledged the fraud and Mr. Medvedev promised justice, the officials were cleared, and some were even promoted” (“Trade and consequences,” Washington Post, 20 June 2011). Typical of the WP, they omitted that some 20 prison officials were fired immediately, and last week the chief culprit in the Magnitskii murder and fraud case, MVD deputy chief Alexei Anichin, was fired Russia’s albeit all too slow investigation into the case continues. Third, the editors’ piece was accompanied by another oped, which included a similar falsehood, referring to “Russia's increasingly authoritarian domestic policies” (Robert Kagan, “Loosening Putin's grip,” Washington Post, 17 June 2011).
The point here is not that Russia is a democracy unplagued by crime and corruption in high places or that Moscow should not be held at arm’s length from the West if it lets Magnitskii’s murder go unpunished. Rather, it is to say that other far more murderous regimes are not subjected to the kinds of sanctions the WP insists be applied to Russia and that such a double standard is fatal for any improvement in U.S.-Russian relations, and the prospect of Russia’s democratization and integration into the West. China is a WTO member despite the fact that hundreds, if not thousands have perished in its present-day Gulag, since it joined the WTO. The WP and other Westerners declaim Moscow for impunity in the murders of journalists, ignoring that WTO-member China permits no independent journalists at all.
The WP and other mainstream media outlets castigate Moscow for failing to let certain opposition parties run in elections, overlooking the fact that WTO-members China, Saudi Arabia and other totalitarian regimes, allow no opposition parties at all. The WP and others seek to punish Moscow because some opposition demonstrators have been on occasion detained and beaten, but in China, Saudi Arabia and other regimes, not one opposition demonstration has ever been permitted.
If the WP and Kagan want to apply such standards to Russia, then in the interests of a balanced American foreign policy they ought to demand that the same standards be applied to China, Saudi Arabia and other such countries. Otherwise, we must conclude that they regard the latter countries as sufficiently democratic to be included in the WTO and among those friendly to the U.S or that they simply seek to isolate, weaken, and even provoke Russia into overreaction and reactionary policies in service of a return to the old, more familiar world of the Cold War confrontation with Moscow.
Comments