Russia: Other Points of View

MAINSTREAM MEDIA JUST CAN’T GET PERESTROIKA 2.0

COMMENTARY

by Gordon M. Hahn

The latest evidence suggests the U.S. mainstream media still just can’t or willfully refuses to ‘get it’ when it comes to Russia’s new reform era – dubbed here variously as ‘Medvedev’s thaw’, ‘the tandem’s thaw,’ and ‘Perestroika 2.0’ nearly four years ago now. 

What began as a result of bias regarding Russia is now reinforced by self-interest; rejection of the “other Russia” they refused to mention for years must continue in order to coverup their prior journalistic malpractice.  But as the expression goes: the coverup is worse than the crime.

Today the U.S. mainstream media is desparately trying to deal with the uncomfortably undeniable ‘Perestroika 2.0’ by studiously ignoring or downplaying it––or pretending it is something else.

NATO’S WORD OF HONOUR AND ARMS RACES

by Patrick Armstrong

Some attention has been paid to an address to the Russian people on 23 November in which President Medvedev set out Russia’s possible reaction should its concerns about the European Missile Defence system not be accommodated. For once, the Western media reported it reasonably accurately with most news outlets echoing the BBC’s heading: “Medvedev sees arms race if missile shield not agreed”. A conditional statement: if this, then that.

Here is what Medvedev said. “Our only goal was to preserve the basic principle that Europe does not need new dividing lines, but rather, a common security perimeter with Russia’s equal and legally enshrined participation.” He reiterated Russia’s desire to build a “genuine strategic partnership” with NATO. But, he said: “Rather than showing themselves [NATO members] willing to hear and understand our concerns over the European missile defence system at this stage, they simply repeat that these plans are not directed against Russia and that there is no point for us to be concerned… But our requests that they set this out on paper in the form of clear legal obligations are firmly rejected… but our colleagues should understand that these obligations must have substance and not be just empty words”.

MY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION BET

by Patrick Armstrong

It sometimes seems that the only story in Russia today is who will run for President and the Kommentariat is parsing every word uttered by Putin or Medvedev in its search for clues. Neither has yet said anything definite (and no more would either: the fear is that the Russian bureaucracy – ever alert to power shifts – would stop working altogether). Readers are reminded that we heard similar speculation before: Gorbachev would not step down; Yeltsin would not (could not some said) step down; Putin would change the Constitution and stay on. In some cases, there are Russia watchers who have stoutly maintained all these positions.

I was amused by a recent – and rather lengthy – think piece which concluded that the possibilities were that Medvedev, Putin or someone else would be the next President. I believe that people who watch Russia should do better than that; and I am putting my bets down:

1. Medvedev will run for President and Putin will not.

2. There may be another candidate from the Team who runs.

Medvedev will run for President and Putin will not.

WILL MEDVEDEV SOON DECLARE HIS CANDIDACY AND RUN AS AN INDEPENDENT?

COMMENTARY

by Andrei Liakhov

Any presidential campaign is very expensive. It is a universal rule of modern politics that the better funded candidate always wins. This is equally true of the US, Russia, France, Lithuania, Austria. I randomly selected countries with different political systems and different structure of the electorate. This rule becomes even more important where there are no major political differences between candidates’ platforms. However any, even the best funded candidate, needs a well organized and oiled election machine to persuade the electorate that he is the best of available choices. These are the basic starting points of any election campaign.

Where one of the candidates is an incumbent head of state, the track record of his last office is important, but not crucial (Bush Sr. is not a suitable example as Clinton campaign was much better funded and organized, and I cannot find a recent example of a better funded incumbent president losing his second election campaign).  Although establishment support usually plays only a very modest role in a developed society, any CIS elections are often heavily influenced (if not determined) by the establishment throwing its collective support behind a chosen candidate.

Medvedev has to consider all of these factors before deciding whether to run as an independent:

US-RUSSIA DETENTE?

by Vlad Sobell

When my son was a toddler, he believed that the wind was caused by trees moving their “arms” (that is, branches) and that the wind would stop once the trees kept their “arms” still. The proposition that the recent attempt at US-Russia détente – unnecessarily given the fashionable term “reset” – is driven by the will of President Obama, or even by the “pragmatism” of such minor officials/academics as Michael McFaul, Washington’s next ambassador to Russia, is surely just as childish.

Any adult with an ounce of understanding of history and the basic laws of economics knows that America’s post-war empire has fatally overextended itself and that it needs urgently to adjust its global ambitions in line with the brutal reality of its economic bankruptcy. A state which has managed to run up unsustainable fiscal deficits and sovereign debt and whose political system, moreover, is so dysfunctional that it does not yet understand the seriousness of its condition (never mind being able to begin to deliver a credible way out of the crisis) is not equipped to embark on another Cold War with Russia.

IS SERGEY MIRONOV THE YELTSIN OF TODAY? OR IS THE REGIME RULING GROUP BEGINNING TO RIP AT THE SEAMS?

COMMENTARY

By Gordon M. Hahn

The removal of Sergei Mironov from the office of speaker of Russia’s Federation Council (the upper house of Russia’s parliament or Federal Assembly) on May 18, 2011 has great potential to widen the fissures within the Russian elite being provoked by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s reforms and the upcoming federal elections cycle.  Mironov was Russia’s third highest ranking official on paper, that is – according to the Russian constitution, and was a part of the larger St. Petersburg group that has ruled Russia since Putin’s assumption of the presidency in May 2000.

Mironov was recalled from his office by the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly which seconded him to the Federation Council as one the regions’ two constitutionally-mandated senators; he was then elected council chairman with Putin’s imprimatur in December 2001.  The recall vote occurred in rapid fire fashion after reports appeared that the deputy head of Medvedev’s presidential administration in charge of politics, Vladislav Surkov, was attempting to recruit Mironov’s Fair Russia Party (Spravedlivaya Rossiya or SR) as a platform for a Medvedev run for the presidency independently from the preference of his mentor, Prime Minister and former president Vladimir Putin.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Rule-of-law. At the St Petersburg Legal Forum Medvedev said: “Over these last years we have made progress in putting in place the foundations on which we can build a rule-of-law state in our country.” I think that’s a fair statement: he’s essentially saying that the beginning has been begun and not pretending that what’s been done is enough or that the job is finished. Police reform, legal changes, dismissals, some trials; that’s not nothing. I find that too much comment on Russia is absolutist: either a reform is 100% successful right now or it’s 100% failure. But, in the real world, it’s all incremental and one should look for small progress. It’s there.

Police reform. Medvedev has signed a decree establishing advisory panels at regional police headquarters. They are to “coordinate issues of public importance concerning the interests of peoples, federal and regional bodies of state power, local self-governments, and public associations”. That’s quite a lot he’s done in this area. Its effectiveness will be revealed in the next few years but again, it’s not nothing.

PRESERVING INFLUENCE IN A CHANGING WORLD: RUSSIA'S GRAND STRATEGY

REPRINTS

By Andrei P. Tsygankov

San Francisco State University

Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 58, No. 1, March-April, 2011, pp. 28-44.

Abstract

Russia has been creating flexible international coalitions in order to achieve its central objective of becoming an independent center of power and influence.

Russia is never as strong as we fear and never as weak as we hope.

Klemens von Metternich

1. Introduction

From Europe to the Middle East and Asia, scholars and politicians are increasingly recognizing the prominent role of Russia in international affairs. From a weak and inward-looking nation of the 1990s, Russia has emerged into a power that is capable of defending its international prestige using available economic, military, and diplomatic means. It has exploited its energy clout to expand Russian relations abroad and cemented its military presence in the strategic area of the Southern Caucasus by defeating Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia. By mobilizing its soft power, the Kremlin has also contributed to reversing the colored revolutions in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. After being seriously hit by the global financial crisis, Russia has quickly recovered as an important international player.

THE SEMIOTICS OF PERESTROIKA

COMMENTARY 

by Gordon Hahn

As Mikhail Gorbachev moved toward the political reforms that put perestroika on the map as a major reform project, he seized upon several models and anti-models from Soviet history pointing out the democratic direction in which he sought to move.  He promoted Nikolai Bukharin, who was killed in Stalin’s purges, and Vladimir Lenin’s quasi-capitalist New Economic Policy (NEP), which was killed by Stalin’s forced collectivization and industrialization and the Great Terror.  On November 7, 1987 Gorbachev condemned Stalin and his “crimes” in order to pave the way for the CPSU’s adoption of political reforms.

Similarly, as Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev continues to push forward his economic modernization and political liberalization program or ‘thaw’ forward along with his tandem partner Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin he also needs historical models and anti-models from Russian and Soviet history to hold up as lightbeams pointing both to and from where he plans to take the country.

THE MEDVEDEV THAW AND EARLY REGIME ELITE SPLIT CONTINUE

COMMENTARY 

By Gordon M. Hahn

There can be no doubt that the thaw under the presidency of Dmitrii Medvedev we foresaw three years ago has occurred.  Several recent changes have reconfirmed the liberalizing trend.  With the new law ‘On the Police,’ a first step has been taken in refoming the police, and subsidiary laws and reforms are set to follow.  Medvedev is moving to amend his anti-corruption legislation for the fourth time.  This time a truly major measure has been proposed: bribe-taking and bribe-giving will be punished by a fine of up to one hundred times the amount exchanged in any one bribe.  A Russian official caught taking a bribe will either have to pay 60 to 80 times the amount of the bribe and be banned from holding public office for three years, or pay 50 times the bribe and serve a prison sentence of five to 10 years.  Bribers will be fined 15 to 60 times the bribe.  Bribes in an amount over 1 million rubles will pay a fine of 80 to100 times the amount of the bribe­ or 70 times the bribe and a prison sentence of 8 to 15 years.  Fines for any one bribe cannot exceed 300 million rubles.