Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Note from the author: 

NO MORE SITREPS UNTIL LATE NOVEMBER.
 
Dear Readers: today’s is the 611th of these since the first one in March 1997. I normally have no difficulty in filling the page but, of late, I find that that it is more and more difficult. This is, I believe, another indicator of the increasing stability and “normality” of Russia’s situation. In former times we had “the Eastern Question” or “the German problem” and so we have had “the Russian problem”. But, as the others faded away (over time and much pain) so will this.

I will consider, when I get back, whether I can continue the weekly schedule or switch to every two weeks.

Demographics. The Russian demographic problem – which, incidentally, has its roots in the Soviet days and is mirrored in most FSU countries (Latvia perhaps the worst) – was the consequence of problems at each end. Low birth-rates and high infant mortality combined with too many early (and largely preventable) deaths. But, contrary to the customary poorly-sourced pieces that the Western MSM is rife with, progress is being made. Anatoly Karlin has been posting on the subject for several years and is well worth reading. His latest argues that Russia’s population has actually increased and is today higher than it was in 2009. While the natural population increase is still negative – but less and less so every year – the increase has come from immigration. Improvements have been made at both ends of the problem but Karlin provides data showing that deaths by alcohol, suicide and homicide have seen great reductions. They are still rather higher than they should be but these are factors where comparatively easy resolutions can be found. In short, it appears, barring some new disaster, that the Russian demographic crisis is on the way to being solved; that the various government programs are having their effect and that increasing prosperity will continue to raise life expectancy and reduce infant mortality. Thus Russia’s “demographic crisis” is yesterday’s news and the improvements – with more expected – serve as another of the many reasons that Russians generally approve of the Putin team. It cannot be said too often that the reasons for the Team’s popularity, trust and support in Russia is not that opinion polls are fixed, or that the mass media is as it was in the Soviet days or that Russians are naturally subservient (all assumptions of the Russophobic tendency) but because Russians can see every day the effect of a governing team that, generally speaking, does what a government is hired to do.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY REPORT

by Patrick Armstrong

Eurasian Union. Putin has spoken of his desire to form a “Eurasian Union” and this has attracted some attention. This is hardly the first time, though, that he has spoken of such a thing. We already have the Russia-Belarus union, which doesn’t seem to amount to much; the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, which is still in its infancy; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation of Russia, four Central Asian countries and China and several partial members which is largely security-based. And, of course, the CIS which is as yet undead.  None of these is especially vibrant. Moscow and Astana have been the prime movers of most of them and they are founded on the remaining common economic/trade and security concerns of the countries involved. Perhaps the Customs Union will be expanded farther; that will depend on how successful it proves to be. There is, therefore, nothing especially new about Putin’s desires. However some things have changed in the 10 to 15 years that these ideas have been floated. The most significant change is that the attraction of the West/European “model” has waned somewhat. The dreams of acceptance, integration and equality that were alive in the 1990s have been replaced with a rather drearier reality. And the reality – unexpected 15 years ago – that Russia is doing best.

THE RUSSOPHOBES WERE RIGHT... (ABOUT THE WRONG COUNTRY)

REPRINTS

by Anatoly Karlin

www.sublimeoblivion.com 

After peaking in 2007 at the height of its oil boom, the Russian economy slid off the rails, with GDP collapsing by 25% from peak to trough. Attempts to stem the decline by arresting pessimistic economists failed. Its image as a tiger economy, heavily promoted by Kremlin ideologues, was revealed to be a sham. Though anemic, growth returned this year; but little of it trickles down to ordinary Russians. Unemployment is over 16%, birth rates have collapsed, and millions of citizens are voting with their feet and migrating to work as laborers in affluent Western Europe.

This demographic free fall threatens to dash any remaining hopes of Russia ever converging to European living standards. Birth rates have fallen by 25% since the post-Soviet era peak in 2008, and the total fertility rate ­ the average number of children a woman can be expected to have over her lifetime ­ is now one of the lowest in the world, surpassed only by a few small, rich Asian states like Taiwan and Singapore. And with young professionals rushing for the exits, this situation is unlikely to be reversed any time soon. Last year, half a million people out of Russia's 143 million population left for greener pastures; this figure has already been exceeded in the first half of this year. Already falling at an alarming 840,000 in 2009, population decrease further rose to 1,220,000 in 2010 and on current trends will approach 2 million this year. This demographic death spiral is the epitome of Putinism's failure. The Leon Arons and Nicholas Eberstadts of this world were correct all along. Having been a Russophile shill all these years, it is time for me, like Johann Hari, to admit to my failures, apologize to the readers I misled, and go back to journalism school.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY REPORT

by Patrick Armstrong

Police reform. The Interior Minister says police who may be exposed to temptations of bribery will have to take regular lie-detector tests. He is pretty pleased with the results of the “combing” process. I think, to put it mildly, he’s over-optimistic. The Investigative Committee says that police officers have been charged with 70 crimes in the last 10 days. And that’s the ones they’ve been charged with. Obviously the teeth on the comb were set too far apart.

Politkovskaya. Perhaps a break-through: a former policeman, Dmitriy Pavlyuchenkov, was arrested and charged with organising her murder. The theory is that he was a contractor and the investigators say they know who ordered her death. The prosecution theory has always been that the man who ordered it is no longer in Russia. Pavlyuchenkov’s name came up early in the case but he seems to have been able to avoid charges and apparently functioned as a sort of secret witness for the prosecution. From the beginning I have believed that she stumbled – perhaps unknowingly – across some piece of information a Chechen “biznesman” didn’t want known. Nothing to do with Putin or the government.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Then and now. The 20^th anniversary of the 1991 coup attempt and its sequella is upon us and I agree with Gorbachev’s comment that the coup planners “were truly idiots, and they destroyed everything. And we proved ourselves to be semi-idiots, myself included.” The 17 March referendum  showed, with important exceptions, that the bulk of the population wanted to remain united. (The results foretold much of the coming fighting and secessions too). But it didn’t happen and there was no small misery in consequence of the breakup. However there is an interesting piece comparing ordinary life in Russia then and now in terms of purchasing power. In essence, despite much remaining poverty (20% or so), per capita income is up about 45% since 20 years ago. 45% is not that much perhaps over two decades, but the growth comes post-Putin after the seemingly unending fall throughout most of the 1990s. No wonder most Russians support Putin/Medvedev. It would be interesting to see a similar calculation in the other 14 former SSRs. In that connection, I leave you with this quotation from Ukraine’s then-PM Kuchma in 1993: “…like everyone else, I believed that Ukraine is so rich that it provided for the entire [Soviet] Union. It turned out that it is, in fact, rich. However, was it really a provider?” I believe many SSRs thought that they put in and the RSFSR took out and the moment Moscow was gone they would be better off. Not true, as they have had opportunity to learn and reflect on.

RUSSIA’s ECONOMIC “STAGNATION” IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

REPRINTS

by Anatoly Karlin

www.sublimeoblivion.com

In the wake of the 2009 recession, declinist rhetoric has come to dominate discussion of Russia’s economic prospects. Jim O’Neill, the founder of the BRIC’s concept, has his work cut out defending Russia’s expulsion from the group in favor of Indonesia, Mexico, or some other random middle-sized country. Journalists in the Western media claim its economy is “not growing”, as do liberal Russian newspapers such as Vedomosti. Comparisons between Putin and Brezhnev (who presided over the Soviet Union’s period of stagnation, or zastoi) are piling up. Even President Medvedev isn’t helping the situation, telling a forum of international businesspeople that Russia’s “slow growth” hides stagnation.

I don’t want to exchange rhetorical barbs in this post (which you may note is not tagged as a “rant“), and my skills at mockery and picking apart tropes aren’t nearly as well developed as those of Mark Adomanis or Kremlin Stooge, so I’ll do what I do best and go straight to the statistics. And so we have Fact #1: what is described as stagnation for Russia is a growth rate of 4%. It grew 4.0% for 2010. It was 4.1% in Q1 2011, and the government predicts it will be 4.2% for the whole year. The World Bank predicts 4.4% in 2011, 4.0% in 2012; the OECD expects 4.9% in 2011 and 4.5% in 2012; and the IMF forecasts 4.8% in 2011, 4.5% in 2012, tapering off to less than 4.0% in the “medium-term.”

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Another misquotation in the Only Story in Russia. RIA Novosti reports that Medvedev said that he and Putin would decide which runs for president soon. This assertion will, no doubt be endlessly repeated. But it’s not what he said. What he actually said was that he would decide fairly soon whether he would run for a second term: “I do not rule out the possibility of my running for a second term at the presidential elections. The decision will be taken very shortly”. (Eng Rus)  A much better mindset than this sterile obsession with one or the other is the German concept of a Vorstand; a corporate governance team which is “expected to act collectively and collegiately”. Medvedev himself said about the two of them “We have friendly and very warm relations that have been shaping over the last two decades. It is a long time, in my life, too ‑ you said I am not that old yet. I have known Mr Putin for almost half of my life, it is quite a lot, and we first met back in St Petersburg many-many years ago.” They’re a team. And they are in turn part of a team that has worked together quite effectively and harmoniously for some years. (I am obliged to Timothy Post for introducing me to the concept of a Vorstand.)

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Revolutions. The Arab Revolution is making a few people (Gorbachev for one) speculate about the possibility of a similar rising in Russia. Speculation about a Russian “Arab scenario” is little more than wishful thinking from a negligible opposition that agrees on almost nothing. The “Arab revolution” is sui generis: rulers-for-life enriching their circle while impoverishing everyone else and populations in which half are under 30 or 25 with little to hope for. And some outside advice. This is not Russia: simply stated, the necessary conditions are not there. The Duumvirate remains popular and for good reason: Russians can see and touch the improvement in their situation over the past decade. If in 15-20 years the same people were on top still taking about police reform, cooruption and modernisation that would be a different story. However, some of the other post Soviet states, especially those with rulers-for-life, could develop that way. One place to keep an eye on is Georgia: if Saakashvili contrives to stay in power (as he seems to be trying) and we have another few years of stagnation and blaming everything on Russia, it could happen there – at least some of the opposition says so.

VIDEO and TRANSCRIPT OF VLADIMIR PUTIN'S INTERVIEW WITH CNN's LARRY KING

Putin's interview with Larry King

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT as provided by the Russian prime minister's website

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

 by Patrick Armstrong

Medvedev program. Medvedev’s (ie The Team’s) program for the first year was derailed by two unexpected events: the international financial crisis and Saakashvili’s invasion of South Ossetia. Nonetheless, we do have an idea of what he (ie The Team) has in mind. While not very much has happened, there is talk of selling off a number of state-owned companies and many speeches about the problem of corruption. Overtures to, if not the opposition, at least non-Kremlinocentric opinion and, many many references to modernisation: “perhaps the most important topic on our agenda, namely the modernisation of our economy. The modernisation of Russia's economy must be based on new technologies, innovation and the radical restructuring of the country's internal economic structure.” Medvedev spends a lot of his time exhorting people and talking about the big strategic picture (for example, to energy sector executives on Friday). Thus far, not that much legislation has hit the street, but it is coming (education, police, quality control, banking).