Results of the Year: Fatalists in the Kremlin
By Aleksandr Golts
January 2, 2013
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

The foreign policy of the first year of the third term of President Vladimir Putin was characterized by several common tendencies. First: a belief in realpolitik. But this is not the civilized realpolitik of Henry Kissinger. It is the simple – if not primitive – realpolitik of the 19th century. Different states, those egotistical animals, barter back and forth in an effort to further their own national interests. To that end, they create unions aimed at weakening the other main players. This bartering takes place during secret diplomatic conferences, when secret agreements are developed. Holding talks on democracy and human rights during such conferences is simply a joke. Putin sees these talks as propagandistic tools to weaken Russia. He is certain that he understands the rules of the game.

If one had to define the most important tendency within Russian politics on the international stage in 2012, it would be increased alienation from the outside world and less of a connection to reality. In the 21st century, there is less and less realism in the Kremlin’s professed 19th-century realpolitik. Putin’s single foreign policy goal is to prevent Russia from having a “colored revolution.” Our head of state genuinely believes that protests are the result of conspiracies between other powers, particularly the US, whose goal is to weaken our Fatherland, strenuously rising up from its knees.

Therefore, the main blow has to be against our enemies. And the State Duma, intoxicated by its own impunity, has stamped one monstrous law after another. Non-governmental organizations that risk telling the truth about the state of political freedoms, human rights, and corruption are synonymous with “foreign agents.” And if someone with American citizenship works at an NGO, that organization will be closed. And any citizen who talks to a foreigner can be charged with treason – here, it is enough for the security services to suspect a foreigner of belonging to an organization that wishes to harm Russian security. God knows how this chimes with the professed need for intellectual exchange with the surrounding world. Most likely, it does not chime at all. It is obvious that the essence of Putin’s international policy is maximally isolating the country from its insidious external surroundings.

The further it goes, the more this policy is going to harm Russian citizens instead of any cursed foreigners. The most striking example is the response to the Magnitsky Act, the American law banning corrupt Russian officials (most of all, the ones from the so-called law enforcement agencies) from indulging in the joys of the American state. More precisely: from going to the States, keeping money there, or buying property there. The response was definitely asymmetrical: for attempting to punish corrupt Russian officials, Russian children are going to foot the bill.

Our national diplomacy also works according to this same logic in discussions of one of the main conflicts of this past year – the one in Syria. It was announced a hundred times that Moscow is not holding out for Assad – and indeed, why hold out for a regime that will inevitably fall within the next few months (or even weeks). However, Russia has spoken out “decisively” against foreign meddling in its domestic affairs. And Russia has provided Assad with “entirely legal” services, giving weapons to a regime in the throes of death. If Moscow actually followed realpolitik, it could have just built up a relationship with the Syrian rebels in order to save its military contrasts and base in Tartus. Instead, Moscow has supported Assad in his insane war against his own people. Because, in reality, countering colored revolutions actually means countering the will of people who are sick to death of leaders who have taken it upon themselves to rule forever.

As a result, Russia today is the main international warrior not for the people, but for authoritarian and totalitarian rulers – in Syria, North Korea, and Iran. Russian diplomats scared to death at the prospect of winding up on the Magnitsky Act list threaten the US with a break in diplomatic relations. And Putin’s year-end press conference, full of absurd anti-American rhetoric, demonstrated that our national leader is entirely full of genuine indignation towards the United States. Washington, for some reason, is not playing by the rules. At least, not by the rules that Vladimir Putin thought up for himself. And that, I suppose, is the main problem in Russian foreign policy – its strategy exists in a separate world. A separate one from that of their partners. To put it bluntly, they are playing chess, but they think they are playing checkers.

And it is precisely here, I suppose, that the new trait of Putin’s foreign policy manifests itself: fatalism. Two years ago during his annual television show, Putin agreed that he was lucky. It appears that he indeed believes in his own incredible luck, helping him slip out of any situation.

Just like the Politburo elders in the Kremlin at the end of the 1970s, Putin is certain that oil prices are never going to fall. All leading states will be doomed to purchase oil and gas from Russia, regardless of how good their relations are with the Kremlin. If the market climate is good, these tools will allow Putin to implement his grand idea to reintegrate the former Soviet republics. I would like to note that these plans also fit nicely into the creation of unions as part of the realpolitik of the century before last. That is the case even if these projects, such as the Customs Union, for example, have an obviously harmful effect on Russia’s economy. Under these circumstances, the country’s leadership falls under the illusion that it can act on the international stage without any boundaries. The future is unpredictable, says the Kremlin. We cannot rule out that, as a result of forthcoming cataclysms, Russia’s place on the international stage could fundamentally improve. Moreover, the economic crisis engendered the illusion among Kremlin strategists that some kind of “new world order” could allow Russia to start from a blank slate and become a superpower once again. This is exactly what the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was talking about in his speech before the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy: “A majority of factors testify to the fact that a new historical milestone is beginning… Given such a radical ‘do-over,’ there’s a lot, probably, that can start from a clean slate, and far from all of the rules that define the international hierarchy today are going to apply in the future. There’s no ruling out that what’s going to be significant is not the place where this or that technology is created, but the ability to use it best. In this sense, Russia, with her intelligent and audacious population and vast resources enjoys obvious advantages.” The logic is stunning: because of forthcoming changes, Russia will be able to use the achievements of others on account of “audacity.” At the same time, there is no hint of how the country will mystically be able to solve its demographic problems or what these vast resources are that can be harnessed. This is not the logic of an analyst – it is the logic of a gambler in a casino.

In effect, the Russian government is admitting that it has no rational plan on how to “raise the country up.” All its bets are hedged on the idea that, when people standing in a line turn around 180 degrees, the last person becomes the first. These policies, obviously, will lead to nowhere. Which is to say: to international isolation.

In past years, Vladimir Putin has hosted an annual televised call-in for Russian citizens to ask him various questions. For the first time, this year’s conference featured no such citizens, and instead took the form of a four-and-a-half-hour press conference. While the general consensus seems to be that the event was overwhelmingly boring, reactions to some of Putin’s particular statements are worthy of mention. Below are some responses to the press conference by analysts, politicians, and journalists, all gathered from Gazeta.ru and Kasparov.ru.

Aleksei Makarkin, Deputy Director of the Center for Political Technology:

The main thing in Putin’s address was the mass media. The questions did not used to be so incisive, and moreover, if the president responded, then it was a definitive response. He no longer observes these rules. Some of his answers contained counterattacks, and sometimes he said he wasn’t informed of the issue.

In regards to the anti-Magnitsky law, he gave the impression that he really wanted to sign it, but at the same time wanted to leave a little leeway to have the possibility of backing off from this law.

Not one of his statements was surprising. The goal of this press conference was to retain his supporters. When he answered a question from Gazeta.ru, he was not so much addressing the publication’s readers, but his own supporters, in order to demonstrate that the president is strong.

Mikhail Vinogradov, Director of the Petersburg Policy Foundation:

There was no clear message here.

The questions were more striking than their answers, just like during Dmitri Medvedev’s television interview. The main issue in the press conference was the rebirth of public political life; the press spoke up, and not just the servile ones like Izvestia. The situation is reminiscent of the end of the ’80s, when the press became the country’s key opposition force.

Boris Nemtsov, Co-Representative of Parnas, Member of the Opposition Coordination Council:

I really liked Putin’s statement about Serdyukov today. It turns out that he isn’t a swindler or a thief, since there hasn’t been a court decision yet. But Magnitsky is a swindler and a thief, and [Hermitage Capital Management head William] Browder is a swindler and a thief, despite the fact that there hasn’t been a court decision.

It’s obvious that the war on corruption is a complete fake; they won’t give up their own… I was also struck by [Putin’s statement] that Magnitsky had passed away, and hadn’t been tortured. Although it’s true that after his death they found marks of torture on his body, and his fingers had been crushed. These lies struck me deeply….

Sergei Obukhov, State Duma Deputy from the Communist Party:

Such boredom! Four and a half hours of banality and repetition. Nothing stuck in my memory, everything was predictable. Putin is maintaining the status quo.

In regards to the anti-Magnitsky bill – that which he organized, he answered. It is not as if the Duma came up with this bill; it was, of course, the presidential administration. All of this is psychotherapy that has nothing to do with real politics.

Ilya Yashin, Co-Representative of Solidarity:

Putin says: “We do not have authoritarianism.” And just as swiftly: “I could easily change the constitution.” This is some sort of comedy club, not a press conference.

Ilya Ponomarev, State Duma Deputy from A Just Russia:

The most striking thing to me was the female journalists who asked questions.

Katya Vinokurova, Diana Khachaturian, and Masha who said “Thanks, Vova!” all showed with the same conversational manner just how much attitudes toward the acting president have changed in this country. Secondly, it is very important that the issue of yesterday’s law [on banning US adoptions of Russian children] came up seven times, and the people who asked those questions deserve a gracious bow. Thanks to that, the chances of the president vetoing this bill have risen considerably.

Yevgeniya Albats, Editor-in-Chief of the New Times:

I was certain that he would act like this during the press conference. He basically said: we’re not going to cave to public opinion. The scariest part is that Putin genuinely thinks that how it is in Russia is how it is everywhere. That is unfortunate. He genuinely does not understand basic things.

Masha Gessen, Author and Journalist, US News & World Report:

The most common thing people say to me after my meeting with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin: “But no, it’s impossible that he didn’t know about you and your book. He’s a security services guy! They would have had to prepare him!” But did he have to prepare for today? To repeat facts and figures, to rehearse answers to totally predictable questions? Enough overestimating this guy. There are already plenty of people who agree that he’s a miscreant. What people still need to understand is that he’s not a very smart miscreant, standing at the head of a behemoth that is utterly casting off the last vestiges of professionalism and the general ability to function. It is a state apparatus built in the image and likeness of its leader: evil and stupid.

Over the past year, society has changed course and begun moving along a course towards increased political mobilization, Kudrin believes – one that is impossible to reverse.

“The decrease in protesters might give the impression that society is returning to political stagnation,” he said. “But that would be a mistake.” On the contrary, Kudrin predicts that civil activity is only going to increase in the coming year.

The year 2012 saw an upswing in calls for political action within society. Among the most prominent examples, Kudrin cited the volunteer camps in Krymsk after that city suffered a devastating flood this past summer and electoral observation organizations.

At times, these projects were developed in spite of government actions that stifle civil activity. “There is a series of laws, such as the changes in the definition of ‘state treason’ and the stricter law on mass protests, that has led to a rise in distrust in populist actions,” Kudrin said. “The chance to reduce the tension within society that followed the parliamentary elections [in December 2011] has been missed.”

Kudrin noted that the government did take some positive measures, such as easing political party registration and a introducing a mixed electoral system, but said this was not sufficient.

The ex-finance minister had a reserved opinion about the Russian opposition’s new Coordination Council, which held elections last October. “We were interested to watch the council’s elections. It was a good experience. However, in my opinion, they should have chosen a platform and then, after that, formed a structure. The Coordination Council did it the other way around,” he said.

Kudrin had even harsher words about the negative effect on the Russian economy of the Kremlin’s anti-Western rhetoric. He argued that it is impossible to talk about Moscow as an international financial center if the government remains so suspicious of foreigners.

“The largest companies already doubt whether it’s worth expanding their staffs of international employees or whether it’s better to cut them back. These businesses haven’t been given clear rules of the game,” he said.

He also strongly criticized the work of Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev’s cabinet. “Instead of privatization, we’re seeing creeping deprivatization,” Kudrin said. “Although, the Rosneft deal to buy TNK-BP has led to the deregulation of 40 billion dollars in shares. That’s several times bigger than all of the government’s privatization plans.”

Kudrin said that Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization was a positive step, but noted that the decision had already been made under Medvedev’s presidency, not Putin’s. He declined to comment directly on Medvedev’s decision not to run for a second presidential term.

While the economic plan that Putin put forth during his December 12 address to parliament was good, Kudrin said, “there aren’t realistic ways to implement it.” He also believes that the president still has not firmly established policy for his third term and could still change course.

One important factor to support the country’s economic growth is migrants, the former finance minister added. “The state should strictly regulate migration. Today we issue about 2 million work migration permits, but in reality we have more than 10 million migrants,” he said. “This speaks to the fact that we have insufficient regulation. We need to help migrants become legalized and attract workers while taking local communities into account. The size of our working population is shrinking.”

Kudrin, who is considered one of Putin’s closest confidants, resigned as finance minister last year just days after Putin announced that he planned to return to the presidency. At the time, Kudrin complained that he could not serve as finance minister under a cabinet led by Dmitri Medvedev, who then suggested that he resign.

In the time since then, Kudrin has founded the Civic Initiatives Committee. “It’s not a political party and it has no goals of taking over the government,” Kudrin explained. “We opened the New Government School to teach those who are interested in working for local governmental agencies. People of entirely different convictions come here, from Parnas to members of United Russia.”

Kudrin also announced that the committee was going to work to support honest journalism, the defense of businesses, and social/cultural projects.

“Why am I, an economist, doing these things? Because economic reforms are hindered by an imperfect political system,” Kudrin explained.

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov had these harsh words for President Vladimir Putin on the day of his annual address to the Russian Federation Council:

Approaching the President’s Address
December 12, 2012
Boris Nemtsov

The fact that Putin is going to give his address on Constitution Day is conspicuous and cynical. This man, who has persistently and purposefully destroyed our constitutional rights with remarkable diligence over the past twelve years, has now decided, in truly hypocritical fashion, to time his speech to coincide with this holiday.

He swore on the constitution – thrice – that he will fight for our rights, but really he was mercilessly trampling over it all that time.

Putin’s oprichniki continue to do this with growing intensity every single day. Take, for instance, December 11. Raids were carried out on the apartments of our fellow oppositionists Taisiya Aleksandrova, Anna Kornilova, and Yury Nabutovsky. The main reason for the raids was their participation in seminars on electoral monitoring. The seminars were in Latvia, which gave the Investigative Committee reason to see the event as preparation for a “colored revolution,” as General Markin, unblinking, announced in a measured tone.

Another thing happened as well – the release of all the figures in the so-called “gambling case,” including all the judges, investigators, and police officers who covered up illegal gambling businesses in outer Moscow, were declared to be “socially close” to the regime and sent home.

But do you remember theft of 5.4 billion rubles from the state budget that Sergei Magnitsky uncovered, instead of throwing the butchers who tortured Sergei in jail, these defenders of thieves and murderers are trying to scare Americans with asset freezes in the Russian Agricultural Bank and their property in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

A tough symmetrical response to the Magnitsky law would have been to immediately remove their children from American universities, immediately close their accounts in American banks, and immediately sell the property they own in the West.

Only then would I believe in the sincerity of the theatrical rage among these Zuganovites, Mironovites and Zhirinovskyists. The end of the day was marked by the absolutely prevocational, one hundred percent anti-constitutional decision by the government not to allow the Freedom March.

The provocateurs from the Kremlin and Moscow City Hall want clashes, they want arrests, they want to frighten free citizens. We have been through this many times before, on the 31st of the month and on other dates. They will not break us. On December 15 at 15:00, I will be on Lubyanka Square. The weather will be bright. Exactly for us free people.

In this column for Gazeta.ru, independent political commentator Sergei Shelin warns against trends in military spending and economic policy that are heavily reminiscent of Soviet times.

Per Stalin’s Wishes
By Sergei Shelin
September 5, 2012
Gazeta.ru

Just like any collective that’s headed towards a dead end, the Kremlin team has been directing its thoughtful gaze back to a time when, as it sees it, everything was good, correct, and even ideal. For them, those times were the years of Stalinism.

Their instinctive draw to precisely those times and those experiences has already become simply impossible to camouflage. There’s too much at stake now to darken or mask their own archaism or to feign a sense of balance or even a contemporary outlook. There’s no longer any possibility for balance today.

The appeal to Joseph Stalin for a recipe that will save them has been sounding out across the entire problematic front.

And Putin’s prescription for the siloviki and military industrialists “to carry out as powerful a breakthrough in modernization of the military sector as we had in the ’30s” – this is only one of the latest examples of the leaders’ return to their roots and origins. But this example might also be the most characteristic one. For it’s precisely the Russian military complex that has been chosen to prove to the people – and, if it’s useful, to the entire world – that our old government not only knows how to spout off rhetoric, but also still understands something about these matters and is capable of implementing at least some sort of grand projects.

It was not for nothing that at this same session of the Security Council, Vladimir Putin once again guaranteed 23 trillion rubles in financing for our weapons program, regardless of its obvious impracticality, and as a compelling point remarked that, for “the past thirty years,” the Russian military-industrial complex has “missed several cycles of modernization” due to a lack of financing.

“The past thirty years” instead of the “past twenty years” that comes to mind – this is an innocent oratorical trick. Otherwise it would turn out that two-thirds of this era of decline occurred during Putin’s own rule. But the main thing in this speech was not that, but the plan it included to reset military industry, with all its concrete provisions.

Their structural, and in some cases textual, similarities to Stalin’s respective provisions bring about the same sensations as one gets from watching an old newsreel.

Stalin had “six conditions” for industrial development. Putin does as well. True, he only has four (three that are enumerated and another supplemental one about conditions for making analogs for us of foreign weapon designs). But in discussing, for example, the cadres, we can say that the two leaders quote one another.

“The slogan ‘the cadres decide everything’ demands that our leaders show the utmost concern for workers, for the ‘little ones’ and ‘big ones’…raise them, move them up and forward…” (Stalin)

“A word or two about cadres: it’s an extremely important question, and at all levels, at that – beginning with the rank-and-file worker and engineering cadres up through those of the company managers… We’ve done a lot to upgrade the working cadres, but if it hasn’t been enough, we’ll continue this work…” (Putin)

Incidentally, it’s possible that these aren’t quotes of each other, but just a similarity in their directions of thinking. With the difference that Stalin knew how to achieve the goals he set, while Putin, it seems, just doesn’t sense what it is in the 2010s that differs from the 1930s.

Nothing that Stalin’s modernization relied on still exists today.

During Stalin’s first five-year plans, from 1928 to 1940, the number of people employed in the industrial sector tripled, and in heavy industry even quintupled. The working ranks were filled up by peasants fleeing from collectivization, women (whose representation in industry rose from a fourth to nearly half), and people from the decimated urban private sector. In today’s Russia, there’s no way to help any large sector of our economy by force of numbers.

The price of modernization in the 1930s was radical, as was the catastrophic decline in the standard of living – particularly in the villages, but in the cities as well. In 2010, no demographic in Russia would agree to sacrifice itself for the sake of “modernization” in general, let alone for the “modernization” of the military-industrial complex.

The motivation of workers, from the “little ones” to the “big ones,” in the 1930s was a mixture of panicked fear and fiery enthusiasm. None of our workers today, “from the rank-and-file worker and engineering cadres up through those of the company managers,” naturally, share either of those sentiments.

One more detail that people don’t always remember. The most important driver of Stalin’s modernization was competition. For example, the competition between aircraft design bureaus, which proposed various fighter plane models. Or, conversely, the fight over resources between military factories that manufactured the same types of products. But Putin’s economy is a place where monopolization is not only imposed, but imposed with ferocity. In short, there are no points of convergence whatsoever.

We do not need to repeat Stalinist modernization. If we have to remember it at all, it should only be in order to do the opposite. To renew today’s Russian economy, we need not socialism, but capitalism; not growth in military spending, but its reduction; not cuts in educational spending, roads, health care and in general everything that would make the country more modernized, but an increase in this spending.

Perhaps Russian society is not quite mature enough for this kind of renewal. But still, Stalinist modernization would be categorically unsuitable. Just as other characteristic aspects of that way of life would be unsuitable.

The romantic nostalgia of Putin and his circle for those past times is, for them, perfectly natural. This is their spiritual foundation. But every successive attempt they make to build contemporary political policy on this foundation only reminds us of the deepening inadequacy of our government representatives to do what’s possible and desirable.

Referring to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the news service said that the law will go into effect immediately on July 30. Earlier reports put that date at November 1.

Officially, the law creates a blacklist of web sites with content that the government deems to be dangerous for children. This refers first of all to child pornography, information on how to prepare or use narcotics, and information on ways to commit suicide or calls to do so.

Sites seen as containing this content will be banned without having to be subject to a court process.

Sites with other unlawful content, such as “war propaganda” and “inciting interethnic hatred” can also be blacklisted if a court deems necessary.

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal media and technology supervisory body, will be responsible for monitoring compliance with the new law, and a special non-commercial organization will be in charge of tracking the internet for offending websites. The organization will then notify Roskomnadzor about a certain site, and Roskomnadzor will then notify the domain owner that their site contains illegal content. If that content isn’t deleted within 24 hours, the hosting company will be required to take it down. If it refuses, the site will be entered into the government’s blacklist.

Critics of the new law fear that its actual purpose is to begin to censor the Russian internet.

Wikipedia’s Russian page went dark for all of July 10 to protest the measure. Other internet companies that have spoken out against the law include Yandex and the Russian branches of Google and LiveJournal.

Members of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights have also called for the law to be struck down.

According to the poll results, which were published on Monday in Vedomosti, the number of full Putin supporters is steadily declining: the same poll taken in August 2011 came up with 16 percent, and in August 2010 – 22 percent.

Respondents prepared to support Putin while he still plans to carry out democratic and market reforms numbered 26 percent, compared with 29 percent in 2011 and 30 percent in 2010.

The number of those disappointed in Putin grew from 11 percent in 2010 to 17 percent in 2012. The same number say they support him just because there is no other alternative.

Another 14 percent do not support Putin at all, and 7 percent are unsatisfied but still have a certain amount of hope in him.

About 43 percent believe that the quality of life in Russia will improve during Putin’s six-year term and that the country will become considered one of the most highly developed.

Almost the same number, 41 percent, do not believe that such development is possible and are pessimistic about the next six years.

Levada Center researchers also asked people what sort of emotions they had about Putin’s return to the presidency.

Positive emotions such as “pride in one’s country,” “joy,” “satisfaction,” and “certainty in the future” were cited by 28 percent. A group of 27 percent was “indifferent,” and 24 percent were “hopeful.”

Another 21 percent of Russian citizens said they had strongly negative emotions towards Putin’s return, including a “sense of worry and hopelessness,” “fear,” “shame,” “anger,” and “outrage.”

The poll surveyed 1600 people in 45 regions of the country between May 25 – 29.

The Degradation of Putin’s Dictatorship
By Georgy Satarov
June 19, 2012
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

I have long been lambasted by my political science textbook-wielding colleagues for calling the Putin regime a dictatorship. And I’ve fought them off: there are different kinds of dictatorships; they turn up in different historical periods in different ways; dictatorships in the information age are not what they were in the previous century. That is why I can confirm that what we’re seeing right now is not the establishment of a dictatorship, but its degradation. Let me explain: the degradation of social order is always a clear historical move to an old, primitive form. The degradation of our dictatorship is a transition from a 21st century dictatorship to a dictatorship from a century ago. That is exactly what we’re seeing right now. Pay attention: the same thing happens with a person in a state of stress or fear. His behavior begins to be governed not by subtle mechanisms of societal control, but by ancient animalistic instincts. This is exactly what our government is demonstrating, by moving from episodic imitation of commitment to the law to complete, unlawful tyranny – whether it’s by passing laws or carrying out indiscriminate searches and arrests – when they’re seized by panic. Let me remind you, by the way, that this didn’t just begin now. The first mass arrests were in 2006 – right before the first Other Russia coalition conference.

It’s clear enough that the attempts to frighten hundreds of thousands of people with fines and repression have had the opposite effect. We saw this for certain on June 12. But remember that this whole disgrace is happening prior to the routine pokazukha that we call the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. My colleagues and even friends will be going there. They are going to participate in the same collective lie in the same halls as Putin and Medvedev. They will be smeared like paint all over the canvas of a picture of a beautiful, liberal Russian government. And then I’ll have to become even more discerning with whom I choose to shake hands.

Western politicians and businessmen will also be at the forum. Politicians I can still understand. They need to endear themselves to their constituencies and put gas in their tanks, and therefore they are forced to make agreements with an illegitimate, criminal regime. But how are we to understand the businessmen?! The political risks of investing in Russia are steadily approaching the absolute maximum possible. But yes, that’s their problem. And we have to deal with our own.

What can we expect next? We have to proceed off of the steadily growing inadequacy of the government. We also must assume that there are people in the government who are also aware of this inadequacy and its negative consequences. This, most likely, is going to increase discontent in the administrative elite with the (relatively) higher political leaders. The traditional behavior of the elites in this kind of situation is to split and for one to try and sacrifice the other, giving it up to the mercy of the opposition and outraged public opinion in an attempt to save itself. And here’s a funny thing: at a certain point it becomes a race for whoever can unite with the opposition faster and betray the rest, throwing them to the dogs. To speak concretely: either the Chekist “Putinyata” blame the liberal “Chubaisyata” for everything, beating themselves in the chest and proclaiming their professional patriotism, or the “Chubaisyata” sacrifice the Chekists and join up with the hated military.

So here’s what’s unpleasant: there is no guarantee that such a scenario ends gracefully with the establishment of democracy and the rule of law in the interest of the citizens of Russia. But there are more uncertainties, fraught with catastrophic consequences including the collapse of the country, in the inertial scenario of the non-stop, uncontrolled collapse of the regime. An understanding of this dramatic fork in the road, which is unavoidable since Putin’s dictatorship is deteriorating, would be helpful for the collective protest leadership. That’s to the extent, of course, that such an understanding can serve as a reason for adequate actions. And it’s clear what those actions would be: the development of legitimate protests (the opposition has no right to compete with the government in levels of inadequacy), the split of the ruling elite, and the search for possible partners. The growth of the scale of the protest is not only a means of pressuring the government to split up, but also the single means of defense from a government prepared to violate any law to save itself.

One last thing. I am not ruling out that the government hopes to set up a zugzwang for the protests. Repression will either frighte the people and the protests will come to naught, or, conversely, it will infuriate and provoke the protesters to act outside the boundaries of the law. The latter could lead to the consolidation of the elite and provide an excuse for expanded repression. This means that the protest needs to be legitimately expanded and supported. It’s difficult, but it’s the only way.

Translation by theotherrussia.org.

It’s been less than a month since Vladimir Putin returned to the post of Russia’s president. In that time, he already managed to sign a degree indicating that Russia’s corrupt system of deciding which corporations should belong to the state and which should not is showing no sign of abating. As Yulia Latynina reports:

Legalizing the Loot
By Yulia Latynina
May 24, 2012
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

One of the first orders that Vladimir Putin signed as president instructed the government to “remove state investment from non-energy sector companies” by 2016. This included companies such as the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), and Rostechnology.

This order was no accident: literally one week later, Putin demanded that Rostechnology prepare proposals to privatize the assets of this state-owned corporation within the space of a month.

If you think about it, this is a very odd piece of news.

UAC, USC, and Rostechnology are not old companies like, for instance, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, tucked away in state-owned silos since the Yeltsin era. These are companies that were created by Putin in 2006-2007 and headed, in a number of cases, by his close friends.

In many cases, private enterprises were incorporated into these companies in a way that was, more or less, violent. And the government declared that these enterprises held an important strategic purpose and should therefore be nationalized. And now after 3-5 years it turns out that they should be privatized again.

You know, only one of two things is possible. Either the government advocates a socialist ideology, in which case it nationalizes companies like Salvador Allende, or it advocates a market ideology, in which case it privatizes them like Margaret Thatcher. But if the government first takes companies from their owners and then privatizes them again, it means that it isn’t advocating either ideology. That means it’s just stealing. So UAC, USC, and Rostechnology are not state companies. They are just an instrument with which private companies are taken from their owners and given out to Putin’s friends.

Take, for example, UAC. Until it was created, the country had to deal with the difficult but necessary process of self-organizing the aviation industry. The weak companies died off, and then the country found itself with a few strong aviation companies: the company Russian Avionics, or Irkutsk Aviation Factory, privatized by management and having fallen on the procurement for the Su in India, which they themselves modernized.

After UAC was created (in November 2006), this process was interrupted. The owner of Irkut, Aleksei Fedorov, was made a proposal he couldn’t refuse: to transfer his private shares to the state, but head the entire company. Fedorov agreed.

The main force behind the pressure on the corporation was Mikhail Pogosyan’s Sukhoi Superjet 100 project. The Superjet turned out to be a super vacuum: the plane’s development cost, according to experts, around 7 million dollars, as opposed to the 1-1.5 million dollar estimates from its competitors. The plane was three years late and turned out to be three tons heavier than promised, but, clearly, from the point of view of the “economy of ROZ” [Stanislav Belkovsky’s characterization of the corrupt nature of the Russian economy – ed.], the project was successful: Fedorov left, and Mikhail Pogosyan took his place.

Or take another instance – the company AVISMA. In 2006, Russia’s largest titanium producer was purchased by the predecessor to Rostechnology – Rosoboronexport – with a 30 percent discount and market quotations of around 1.2 billion dollars.

This was preceded by a rather dramatic story. Sixty percent of AVISMA shares were divided equally between its two owners, Tetyukhin (“the red director”) and Bresht (“the young financier”). Another 13.4 percent of AVISMA shares belonged to Viktor Vekselberg, and between Vekselberg and the owners there was an agreement about “Russian roulette,” and it was specifically stipulated that when the company was purchased, nobody could borrow money from their own bundle.

Allow me to remind you that “Russian roulette” in this context is when you can propose that another owner buys his share at a certain price, and he in response can buy from you at the same price per share.

In May 2005, Vekselberg, having waited for an opportune moment in the market and thinking that AVISMA had less money than he did, offered to buy 60 percent of AVISMA at 96 dollars per share, which was, to put it lightly, inexpensive. However, Bresht and Tetyukhin refinanced through Renaissance and bought from Vekselberg instead.

Clearly, the oligarch found this insulting, and appealed to [Russian businessman Sergei] Chemezov. After that, the state suddenly discovered that AVISMA was a strategic company that should have belonged in the state’s coffers. Bresht and Tetyukhin were offered 700 million dollars for their bundle; they asked for 2 billion.

The matter went all the way to Putin. Putin supposedly said: “Pay them, so there’s no scandal.” But the ones who had taken AVISMA didn’t want to pay up: Bresht was supposedly called to the carpet of then-FSB head Patrushev, who, obviously, was at that moment the main arbiter to determine the price of companies listed on the market.

In the end, the case was settled in the middle: Bresht and Tetyukhin gave away their shares and left Russia, and you can’t say that 1.2 billion dollars is so little money. But you also can’t say that they would have sold any shares at that price in a sound state of mind and with a solid memory.

And now Vladimir Putin is signing an order to privatize state companies that were created 6 years ago. You have to agree that it turned out oddly. It’s not hard to guess that if the UAS assets are privatized that it could easily happen that the state would remain with the cost of developing the Superjet but that future profits from its sale will end up in the hands of future owners of its assets. Or look again at AVISMA. Six years ago it was taken into state coffers (on credit from state banks) as a strategically important enterprise, and now they’re selling it again?

The presidential order is just a continuation of the 180-degree turn in Putin’s economic policy going on before our eyes. Not long ago, all traders – let alone foreigners – were kicked out of the gas sector. And in March 2011 they sold 20 percent of Novatek to the company Total. Also recently we kicked Shell out of Sakhalin, and now Rosneft and Exxon have signed a cooperation agreement, rather similar essentially to what Mikhail Khodorkovsky was suspected of being prepared to sign.

In principle, this is how rulers behave whose thrones are tottering and who are worried about legalizing loot through privatization and through buying shares in the loot with foreign companies.

Translation by theotherrussia.org

Many citizen videos show that the heavy police lines were well inside the rally’s official perimeter long before it was scheduled to conclude at 7:30 p.m. This illegal presence served no purpose other than to provoke conflict. All of the clashes and all of the arrests took place inside the authorized protest zone. Tensions were already high with the city paralyzed under such heavy police presence that it approached martial law. Several of the protest’s leaders, Alexei Navalny, Boris Nemtsov, and Sergei Udaltsov, were actually arrested at the stage of the rally. Another protest leader, Garry Kasparov, asked, “Why is there such police pressure against an officially sanctioned rally? Every single one of our marches have been peaceful, so why provoke clashes now? The only reason is that they are nervous and want to portray us as dangerous radicals.”

The Kremlin’s repression tactics were the same they have used against the “Strategy 31” marchers, but the results are very different when there are tens of thousands of protestors instead of hundreds. The protestors were not the “extremists” advertised by the state-controlled media. They were citizens fed up with years of lies and corruption. Today’s events make it clearer than ever that Russian society will not be satisfied with anything less than Putin’s exit from power, and that the protests will continue until he is gone. It is equally clear that Putin has chosen the path of confrontation and that he will not shy away from violence against the Russian people.

Videos and further reading:

Beaten protestor carried away as crowd chants “Murderers!” at police
Frank Luntz was at the rally and reports for Fox News
Photo gallery of the day’s violence
Remarkable photo of a child facing rows of riot police