“For the Sake of One Man”

– by Bret Stephens

The Wall Street Journal – July 17, 2007; Page A16

In the six or seven years in which they interacted on a regular basis, Vladimir Putin’s police state and journalist Fatima Tlisova had a mostly one-way relationship. Ms. Tlisova’s food was poisoned (causing a nearly fatal case of kidney failure), her ribs were broken by assailants unknown, her teenage son was detained by drunken policemen for the crime of not being an ethnic Russian, and agents of the Federal Security Services (FSB) forced her into a car, took her to a forest outside the city of Nalchik and extinguished cigarettes on every finger of her right hand, “so that you can write better,” as one of her tormentors informed her. Last year, the 41-year-old journalist decided she’d had enough. Along with her colleague Yuri Bagrov, she applied for, and was granted, asylum in the United States.

Ms. Tlisova and Mr. Bagrov are, as the wedding refrain has it, something old, something new: characters from an era that supposedly vanished with the collapse of the Soviet Union 16 years ago. Now that era, or something that looks increasingly like it, seems to be upon us again. What can we do?

The most important task is to get some facts straight. Fact No. 1: The Bush administration is not provoking a new Cold War with Russia.

That it is seems to be the view of Beltway pundits such as Anatol Lieven, whose indignation at alleged U.S. hostility to Russia is inversely correlated with his concerns about mounting Russian hostility to the U.S., its allies and the likes of Ms. Tlisova. In an article in the March issue of the American Conservative, the leftish Mr. Lieven made the case against the administration for its “bitterly anti-Russian statements,” the plan to bring Ukraine into NATO and other supposed encroachments on Russia’s self-declared sphere of influence. In this reading, Mr. Putin’s increasingly strident anti-Western rhetoric is merely a response to a deliberate and needless U.S. policy of provocation.

Yet talk to actual Russians and you’ll find that one of their chief gripes with this administration has been its over-the-top overtures to Mr. Putin: President Bush’s “insight” into the Russian’s soul on their first meeting in 2001; Condoleezza Rice’s reported advice to “forgive Russia” for its anti-American shenanigans in 2003; the administration’s decision to permit Russian membership in the World Trade Organization in 2006; the Lobster Summit earlier this month at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport (which Mr. Putin graciously followed up by announcing the “suspension” of Russia’s obligations under the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty).

This isn’t a study in appeasement, quite. But it stands in striking contrast to the British government’s decision yesterday to expel four Russian diplomats over Mr. Putin’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the former FSB man suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko in London last November with a massive dose of polonium. “The heinous crime of murder does require justice,” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said yesterday. “This response is proportional and it is clear at whom it is aimed.” Would that Dick Cheney walked that talk.

Now turn to Fact No. 2. Russia is acting with increasingly unrestrained rhetorical, diplomatic, economic and political hostility to whoever stands in the way of Mr. Putin’s ambitions.

The enemies’ list begins with Mr. Putin’s domestic critics and the vocations they represent: imprisoned Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky; murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya; harassed opposition leader Garry Kasparov. It continues with foreign companies which have had to forfeit multibillion-dollar investments when Kremlin-favored companies decided they wanted a piece of the action. It goes on to small neighboring democracies such as Estonia, victim of a recent Russian cyberwar when it decided to remove a monument to its Soviet subjugators from downtown Tallinn. It culminates with direct rhetorical assaults on the U.S., as when Mr. Putin suggested in a recent speech that the threat posed by the U.S., “as during the time of the Third Reich,” include “the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”

None of these Kremlin assaults can seriously be laid at the White House’s feet, unless one believes the lurid anti-Western conspiracy theories spun out by senior Russian officials. And that brings us to Fact No. 3. Russia has become, in the precise sense of the word, a fascist state.

It does not matter here, as the Kremlin’s apologists are so fond of pointing out, that Mr. Putin is wildly popular in Russia: Popularity is what competent despots get when they destroy independent media, stoke nationalistic fervor with military buildups and the cunning exploitation of the Church, and ride a wave of petrodollars to pay off the civil service and balance their budgets. Nor does it matter that Mr. Putin hasn’t re-nationalized the “means of production” outright; corporatism was at the heart of Hitler’s economic policy, too.

What matters, rather, is nicely captured in a remark by Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin regarding Britain’s decision to expel the four diplomats. “I don’t understand the position of the British government,” Mr. Kamynin said. “It is prepared to sacrifice our relations in trade and education for the sake of one man.”

That’s a telling remark, both in its substance and in the apparent insouciance with which it was made: The whole architecture of liberal democracy is designed primarily “for the sake of one man.” Not only does Mr. Kamynin seem unaware of it, he seems to think we are unaware of it. Perhaps the indulgence which the West has extended to Mr. Putin’s regime over the past seven years gives him a reason to think so.

Last night, Ms. Tlisova was in Washington, D.C., to accept an award from the National Press Club on behalf of Anna Politkovskaya. “She knew she was condemned. She knew she would be killed. She just didn’t know when, so she tried to achieve as much as she could in the time she had,” Ms. Tlisova said in her prepared statement. “Maybe Anna Politkovskaya was indeed very damaging to the Russia that President Putin has created. But for us, the people of the Caucasus, she was a symbol of hope and faith in another Russia — a country with a conscience, honor and compassion for all its citizens.”

How do we deal with the old-new Russia? By getting the facts straight. That was Politkovskaya’s calling, as it is Ms. Tlisova’s, as it should be ours.

Reprinted with permission from The Wall Street Journal.
Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Putin is heading for a worrying future

Seven years ago, the economist Brigitte Granville and I published an article in the Journal of Economic History entitled “Weimar on the Volga”, in which we argued that the experience of Nineties Russia bore many resemblances to the experience of Twenties Germany. In particular, we focused on the impact of very high inflation, suggesting that it had similar causes and consequences in each case. . . .

The rule of law is the keystone of both liberal democracy and international order. Yet last week the Russian government showed its contempt for the rule of law by flatly refusing to extradite the man who is the prime suspect in the case of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London last November. The Crown Prosecution Service says it has sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution of Andrei Lugovoi. But the Russians maintain that it would be unconstitutional to hand him over.

It might also be embarrassing. The world might finally hear how up to 10 micrograms of the lethal radioactive isotope polonium-210 found their way from a Russian nuclear installation to a teacup in the Pines Bar of the Millennium Hotel in London, where Litvinenko most likely ingested them. There are only two possibilities. Either the Russian government ordered Litvinenko’s assassination. Or – not much better – the Russian government has no control over the lethal substances produced in its nuclear reactors. . . .

Foreign investors have also felt the backlash. Having successfully reduced Shell’s stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas field, Moscow now seems intent on doing the same to BP, which has a substantial interest in the Kovykta gas field. As before, the tactic is to accuse the foreign company of violating the terms of its licence. All that remains to be decided is how much of its stake in Kovykta BP will have to yield up to Gazprom.

Russia under Putin has remained outwardly a democracy. Yet there is no mistaking the erosion of democracy’s foundations under his presidency. In the name of “sovereign democracy”, the direct election of regional governors and presidents was replaced with a system of presidential nomination. Opposition groups can no longer operate freely. Earlier this month, the chess maestro and Putin critic Garry Kasparov and other anti-government activists were prevented from boarding a plane to Samara, where Russian and EU leaders were meeting.

On Putin’s watch there has also been a discernible reduction in the freedom of the press. The three major television networks (Channel One, Rossiya and NTV) are under direct or indirect government control, while reporters who antagonise the authorities can no longer feel safe. Only eight months ago, the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead outside her home, one of 14 Russian journalists who have been murdered since Mr Putin came to power.

To repeat, there is no such thing as the future; only futures. One conceivable future is that after (if?) Mr Putin steps down next year, Russia will become more liberal in its politics. But that is not the future on which I would put my money. A more plausible future is that, having more or less stifled internal dissent, Russia is now ready to play a more aggressive role on the international stage. Remember: it was Mr Putin who restored the old Soviet national anthem within a year of becoming president of the Russian Federation. And it was he who described the collapse of the Soviet Union as a “national tragedy on an enormous scale”.

It would be a bigger tragedy if he or his successor tried somehow to restore that evil empire. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Weimar analogy predicts will happen next.

Local and international coverage of the speech was impressive, with AP wire stories appearing in hundreds of outlets. Most ignored the Politkovskaya theme and instead focused on Kasparov’s call to the West to stop pretending Putin is a democrat in any sense of the word, and to wake up before the state violence against dissent progresses from bruises to bullets. This International Herald Tribune report is typical. The organizers of the Forum are preparing to publish Kasparov’s comments and the subsequent question and answer period in full. Meanwhile we present some excerpts below.

I’d like to talk about what Anna Politkovskaya did during her life and what she still means for all of us today. Both her life and her death have been dismissed by Russian authorities. We have an obligation to prove them wrong. This means not only preserving her memory, but by continuing her fight for truth and justice. To know Anna was to know how deeply she cared. She felt the pain of others very deeply and she communicated that passion in her work. . . .

The words you most often hear about Anna Politkovskaya are “courage” and “inspiration.” Her importance went far beyond her writings. She was a powerful symbol and she will continue to be one. She showed us all what one person with courage could do, that we can all make a difference. Putin’s reaction to Anna’s murder was to say that her influence was minimal, and that, quote, “her death caused more damage than her writings.” That illustrates Putin’s relationship with the media, and it also shows he does not understand the power of inspiration. There are others who will continue not only her work, but her style of work. The will be inspired by her to fight for the truth, to not be afraid to care, to never give up. . . .

I often hear about Vladimir Putin’s popularity in the western media. To understand this you first have to stop making comparisons about opinion polls between Russia and other countries. In a country with no free media, polls cannot be reliable. As Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov recently said, “television is our nuclear weapon.” As in the old Soviet days, they use this weapon to annihilate the public consciousness. We only recently escaped the oppression of the all-seeing Soviet dictatorship and our president was a KGB spy. When someone – “who?” – calls you at home and asks you what you think of the top man, what answer are you going to give? I’m surprised that even 25% are willing to give a negative answer to this question! No, you can’t ask about the president like that, you have to ask about his policies, and about the direction of the country and how people feel about their situation. When you ask questions about the economy, crime, health care, or how Russians feel about the future of the country, you get a very different picture. . . .

We know from experience that the only way to deal successfully with military thugs and totalitarian governments is strong resistance. Big words, dramatic gestures. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner!” Reagan’s, “Tear down this wall!” echoed in history. These were the strong statements that drew a clear line in front of totalitarianism. They were leaders of the free world who were really leaders. Now we have managers and accountants trying to do a little business. Small minds, small ideas, small words. Putin laughs in their faces. What do we hear from them about democracy?! Condoleeza Rice saying she will be watching with interest what happens in Russia? Was she watching the police attack us? Did she enjoy the show? Kennedy and Reagan believed democracy was the most powerful force for improving lives around the world, and for making the world safe. And because they believed, and because they stood up for this belief, it was true. If they had acted like Bush and the others act today, I would still be playing chess for the Soviet Union and Angela Merkel would be looking for a job in East Germany! Today, we hear almost nothing about democracy and human rights in Russia from the West. No, they are too busy making deals for gas and oil with Mr. Putin’s friends to worry about human rights. Democracy has been traded away like weak piece on the geopolitical chessboard.

Where is the line today? How much more will the so-called leaders of the free world tolerate? Today in Moscow Henry Kissinger stated that he understood the need to treat Putin’s Russia as “an equal.” He is talking about a regime that has unlimited money, unchecked power, and is not allergic to blood. Will Putin still be welcomed when his police are shooting people in the streets of Moscow? I do not want to find out. The time is now for the West to tell Putin they will not take watch quietly any more. The time is now to tell Putin and his gang there will be economic and political consequences if they continue to turn Russia into a dictatorship. Their silence is agreement. . . .

Inside Russia, there is hope on the horizon. Those Other Russia marches represent the beginning of a real resistance to Putin’s KGB Incorporated. 6.1. It is very sad that Anna is not here to see it. In recent months, The Other Russia coalition has brought thousands of people into the streets in our Marches of Dissent. Anna would surely have loved to see it, and to march at the front of the line. The day is coming when all of the crimes she described will be investigated with the full authority of the elected government, not just the moral authority of one valiant woman. The criminals who committed the crimes, the officials who ordered them, they will be brought to justice. The new democratic Russia will have new heroes and Anna Politkovskaya will be one of them.