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RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly - 08/25/2006

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  • RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly - 08/25/2006

    RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
    _________________________________________ ____________________
    RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
    Vol. 6, No. 16, 25 August 2006

    A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics

    **************************************** ********************
    HEADLINES

    * THE FADING LEGACY OF THE FAILED 1991 SOVIET COUP
    * GORBACHEV REFLECTS ON THE COUP
    * FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR ASSESSES THE COUP
    * NEW COUNCIL POINTS TO DIVISIONS IN CHECHEN REPUBLIC'S LEADERSHIP
    *************************************** *********************

    POLITICS

    THE FADING LEGACY OF THE FAILED 1991 SOVIET COUP. PRAGUE, August 18,
    2006 (RFE/RL) -- Through the winter of 1990-91 the glue that held
    together the Soviet Union was becoming unstuck.
    On August 20, 1991, a meeting was scheduled to sign a union
    treaty that would give the republics more independence. But two days
    before, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's chief of staff and
    other Politburo members arrived at the presidential dacha in Crimea
    putting the president and his family under house arrest.
    This move unleashed a chain of events that threatened to
    engulf the country in a bloody civil war.
    "I call on you, my comrade officers, soldiers, and sailors,
    do not take action against the people -- against your fathers,
    mothers, brothers, and sisters," Russian Soviet Republic Vice
    President Aleksandr Rutskoi, a decorated hero of the war in
    Afghanistan, appealed to the Soviet armed forces on August 19, 1991.
    "I appeal to your honor, your reason, and your heart. Today
    the fate of the country, the fate of its free and democratic
    development, is in your hands," Rutskoi said.
    Rutskoi's plea was for the most part heeded. Tanks took
    up positions, but no soldiers fired on the thousands of Muscovites
    who had taken to the streets to oppose the plotters.
    "Just after 8 a.m., [human rights activist] Yury Samodurov
    rang and told me to switch on the television," activist Yelena
    Bonner, widow of Nobel Prize laureate Andrei Sakharhov, told RFE/RL.
    "I switched it on and saw all those people and everything that was
    happening. I began to phone everyone. It emerged that I was now the
    center of a rather large circle of people. I told them all: 'Go
    to the Moscow City Soviet.' Nobody really knew what was going on.
    Then, around 9 or 10, they called from the City Council to say that a
    lot of our people were there and that they were heading for the White
    House. Of course, I went to the White House as well."
    Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin provided the
    defining symbol of defiance. Standing on top of a tank, with the
    Russian flag in the background, he called for mass resistance.
    Gradually, the tide turned. The coup crumbled and Gorbachev
    returned to Moscow from Crimea to find a starkly changed balance of
    power.
    And as Yeltsin told Radio Liberty just after the coup, the
    Soviet Union had changed in Gorbachev's absence.
    "I think it is important too that President Gorbachev has
    returned to a different Russia, to a different country," Yeltsin
    said. "It seems to me -- and yesterday I spent half the day with him
    discussing the future course of reforms and economic transformation
    -- that he has at last understood that without democracy, without the
    development of democracy, without radical reforms -- and not the sort
    of quiet reforms during which coup d'etats of this sort can
    happen -- that we can't go further. It seems to me too that he
    has understood the need in fact to end the ruling role of the
    Communist Party of the Soviet Union."
    But building democracy in Russia -- to say nothing of most of
    the other post-Soviet republics -- has proved a daunting task.
    The war in Chechnya, clampdowns on media and NGOs, the Yukos
    affair, the appointment rather than election of regional governors,
    the hobbling of all political opposition are all black marks against
    Russia's democratic record in the last 15 years.
    James Nixey, the manager of the Russia and Eurasia program at
    Chatham House, thinks Russia's experiment with liberal democracy
    is over.
    "If you look at President [Vladimir] Putin's very high
    approval ratings and if you look at the fact that living standards
    have risen quite considerably since 2000 and the fact that you have a
    leader who is strong and independent and doesn't give off the
    same kind of vibes as President Yeltsin, then that is actually far
    more important to [Russians] than the appointment of governors or
    NGOs," Nixey says.
    And gone today is the neat demarcation between the plotters
    and those camped outside the White House, between democrats and their
    opponents.
    In 2004, Putin awarded one of the coup plotters, former
    Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Russia's Order of Merit
    medal for "high achievements in useful, societal activities."
    A recent poll by the Moscow-based Levada Center shows that,
    with the benefit of hindsight, people's attitudes toward the
    plotters and the August 1991 events have changed somewhat.
    Fifteen years after the events, 52 percent of Russians say
    that both the plotters and Yeltsin had been in the wrong.
    Yury Levada, the head of the polling agency, says that
    democracy these days is not high on Russians' list of priorities.
    "People don't [think] of democracy and democratic
    institutions, universal elections, and other [things] as very
    important," Levada told RFE/RL. "The subject of concern for Russian
    people is family, the economic situation, finances, inflation,
    unemployment, criminality, and other [things]."
    The question of Putin's succession and the 2008
    presidential election will be a test for Russian democracy.
    "Whether or not President Putin stays in power, and changes
    or adjusts or abolishes or alters the constitution to enable him to
    stay in power will show us an awful lot about the true nature of
    Russia," analyst Nixey says.
    After 15 years of a rocky transition, Russians for the moment
    appear content to waive their human rights in return for stability
    and rising living standards. The drama of 1991 seems as much a part
    of history today as the Soviet Union itself. (Luke Allnutt)

    GORBACHEV REFLECTS ON THE COUP. Fifteen years after the failed coup
    that triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union and transformed his
    own life, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev talks to
    RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service about the events of August 1991
    and their legacy.
    RFE/RL: In his annual address to the Federal Assembly in
    2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the collapse of the
    Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th
    century." Do you agree with such an interpretation of our recent
    history?
    Mikhail Gorbachev: I have said this on many occasions, and I
    will say it again: I agree. When, during a period of widespread
    reform, glasnost came along and lit up the darker corners of the
    situation in our country, it seemed as though all of society started
    moving and talking. It turned out that the people had something to
    say and that they had someone to speak to. At this time I had already
    been saying that the way of democracy, glasnost, and economic reform
    was the way to go.
    Yet I also warned against the destructive nature of what was
    happening. Things certainly needed to change, but we did not need to
    destroy that which had been built by previous generations. We had to
    deprive ourselves of some things, yes, but this was the unfortunate
    cost. After the putsch, when the real danger of the country coming
    apart arose, I continued to speak out in the same vein. I emphasized
    that the dissolution of a country that was not only powerful, but
    that, during perestroika, demonstrated that it was peaceful and that
    it accepted the basic principles of democracy, would be a tragedy.
    The end of the Cold War presented us with an unprecedented
    opportunity to pursue a new, peaceful policy.
    RFE/RL: Some observers think that the State Committee for the
    Emergency Situation (GKChP) was the natural result of events then
    going on in the country, an effort to restrain the destructive
    processes that had arisen as a result of a systemic crisis of state
    management that, in turn, was created by ill-considered and sporadic
    reforms. Many of the participants of the so-called GKChP insist that
    this was the case. In you opinion, how fair is this point of view?
    Gorbachev: It is nonsense. The natural result of events was
    the well-tuned process that was already under way in the spring of
    1991. There was already the crisis that arose when people had to wait
    in long lines to purchase basic everyday goods. But in the big
    picture, after a long period of deliberation and debate, the
    anti-crisis program had finally started to materialize.
    Interestingly, it started out as a program initiated by the cabinet
    ministers, but then it was joined by all the republics and even the
    Baltic states, with their own special views on certain questions. The
    Baltic states didn't actually sign the document, but they decided
    to implement it anyway. By this time, we had found new solutions and
    ways of dealing with the situation, and we were ready to move
    forward.
    This was natural for the democratization of the Soviet Union,
    and it was also natural for correcting the mistakes we had made
    earlier, particularly our delay in reforming the Communist Party and
    the federated union. The goal of the putsch was to interrupt this
    process. The putschists were at the top of the reactionary
    nomenklatura -- remember, many in the nomenklatura went ahead and
    worked with us, struggled with us. So this is my response to the
    common cliche that you were referring to. These people were unable to
    publicly overthrow the government, so they took a clandestine route,
    which they failed in, because difficult as the times were, nobody
    wanted to return to Stalinism.
    RFE/RL: According to many public opinion polls, perestroika
    remains more popular abroad -- particularly in Europe and the United
    States -- than in the overwhelming majority of countries of the
    former Soviet Union. How would you, as the author of that initiative,
    explain such a difference in its reputation?
    Gorbachev: The difference between the reputation perestroika
    has in Russia and abroad is explainable. Central and Eastern Europe
    gained independence. All of Europe got rid of the nightmare of
    potential confrontation -- moreover, a confrontation that could have
    developed into nuclear war in which Europe would suffer the most
    damage.
    Your question mentioned the CIS countries. Without going into
    detail, I can tell you that neither the majority of their people nor
    their political elite desire a return to the way things were, or have
    any regrets about exiting the union. Recent polls have shown that the
    percentage of the population in these countries in favor of a return
    to the Soviet Union is only about 5-7 percent.
    Russia is a special case. The reason I say this is because
    Russia lost the most as a result of the break-up, in terms of
    geopolitical stature, in terms of historical merit, in terms of
    political power it had by virtue of controlling other republics, and
    finally in terms of economic strength, having ceased to be the center
    of a major economic complex with a population of nearly a
    quarter-billion people. [Former Russian President Boris] Yeltsin and
    [former acting Russian Prime Minister Yegor] Gaidar's reforms
    destroyed the industrial potential of the country and reduced
    millions of people to poverty. Privatization was carried out in such
    a way that instead of contributing to a growing private sector, it
    only resulted in corruption and mass theft. The country was in shock,
    so people naturally looked back to the Soviet Union and the social
    guarantees that it offered. The guarantees were modest, but at least
    they were guarantees. Now, even though things are improving under
    Putin, I would still estimate that about 50 percent of our people
    live in poverty."
    RFE/RL: In Russia, it is popular to argue -- and you hear
    this at the highest political levels -- that the end of the Cold War
    destabilized the modern world order; the solid bipolar international
    system was replaced by an unstable monopolar domination. Do you agree
    with this view?
    Gorbachev: I've heard this view before -- that the Cold
    War supposedly offered a level of stability. I'm not sure where
    this view comes from -- whether it is part of someone's agenda or
    simply rooted in ignorance of the situation that developed in the
    mid-1980s. I was touring the country at the time and from all sides I
    heard the same question: "Will there be war? Please, do anything you
    can to not let it happen. Do anything, we'll live through
    whatever it takes, but just don't let it happen." Of course, many
    people forgot about this when the fear of war subsided.
    The stability of the Cold War was a false one. It was tricky
    and dangerous. We in the Russian and U.S. governments knew better
    than anybody what the true situation was and what it could develop
    into, because we knew what point we were at in the arms race. We knew
    that the kind of technology that we were operating was powerful
    enough to put the fate of civilization in question should there be
    some sort of slip-up. We also knew that the arms race was leading to
    an unprecedented depletion of national resources.
    RFE/RL: How do you assess the state of democracy and freedom
    of speech in Russia today?
    Gorbachev: There are frequent accusations that democracy is
    being suppressed and that freedom of press is being stifled. The
    truth is, most Russians disagree with this viewpoint. We find
    ourselves at a difficult historical juncture. Our transition to
    democracy has not been a smooth one, and we must assess our successes
    and failures not in the context of some ideal, but in the context of
    our history. When Putin first came to power, I think his first
    priority was keeping the country from falling apart, and this
    required certain measures that wouldn't exactly be referred to as
    textbook democracy.
    Yes, there are certain worrying tendencies. We still have
    certain stipulations and restrictions that cannot be explained by
    real dangers, or by the realities of life in Russia. However, I would
    not dramatize the situation. In the past 20 years, Russia has changed
    to such an extent that going back is now impossible.
    RFE/RL: Let's turn the clock back 15 years. You suffered
    a horrible betrayal on the part of the people you considered your
    comrades-in-arms, as well as, perhaps, your personal friends. Not
    many people have experienced this. What personal lessons have you
    learned?
    Gorbachev: We need to follow the path of democracy. We need
    to respect the people, and not turn them back into the herd that was
    bullied for decades and centuries in our country. We cannot resolve
    problems through coups. We need the people to participate in the
    changes that are being enacted in the country. Democracy needs to be
    effective. The law needs to be efficient. Thieves and corrupt
    officials should not feel safe. We need to follow the path of
    democracy toward a free, open, and prosperous country.

    FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR ASSESSES THE COUP. Jack Matlock was U.S.
    ambassador to Moscow from 1987 until 1991. He left Moscow just a week
    before the August 1991 coup attempt. RFE/RL Russian Service
    correspondent Yury Zhigalkin spoke with Matlock about his
    recollections of those turbulent times.
    RFE/RL: How did you first hear about the coup attempt and
    what did you think?
    Jack Matlock: I heard about it the morning of August 19. We
    were on my wife's farm, and my first thought was that it would
    probably fail. I felt that the people who were announced as running
    it, it would appear, had not prepared things adequately. I thought
    there would be resistance and, in my judgment, they were not the sort
    of people who would put down the resistance ruthlessly. Or, if they
    tried to put it down, I thought the armed forces and others would
    probably not follow the orders. I thought that society had moved to
    the point that it was no longer acceptable, even in the, you might
    say, power structures, to put down a popular uprising.
    RFE/RL: You left your post in Moscow just a week before. Did
    you have any indications that this scenario could take place or was
    it just out of the blue?
    Matlock: I had been told confidentially in June by the then
    mayor of Moscow -- he actually wrote it in notes as we sat and talked
    about other things -- that a putsch was being prepared. And he named
    four people who, in fact, were involved later. He did this to get a
    message to [Russian Soviet Republic President Boris] Yeltsin, who was
    then in Washington. When Yeltsin was given the information, he said
    we must warn [Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev. And we tried to do
    so, but without naming the people involved. I think he misunderstood
    the warning, didn't take it seriously.
    But when I heard that the coup had occurred and the people
    who were clearly behind it -- because they were on the committee that
    announced it was taking control -- this came not as a total surprise.
    But, at the same time, I didn't believe these people were capable
    of running the country and I thought that, particularly in Moscow,
    there would be sufficient opposition that, unless they were willing
    to enter into a bloody civil war, they could not prevail. And I
    didn't think they were willing to enter into that. And the first
    time I was interviewed on television the evening of August 19, I
    said, "This is not a done deal. I'm not at all sure this is going
    to hold."
    RFE/RL: Did you detect any real worries in world capitals
    that the plotters might succeed?
    Matlock: I think that most people looking from the outside
    thought they had succeeded. Because I think most people didn't
    understand the degree of change that had occurred in the Soviet Union
    at that time. The Soviet Union was not the Soviet Union that it had
    been five years before or even two years before. It had changed very
    rapidly. I had been privileged to be there and witness these changes.
    You know, most people -- including our governments -- didn't
    really grasp that.
    Now, the American government, I think at the top they
    understood that this could happen. For one thing, I was reporting
    these various things to them. But, on the other hand, we didn't
    want to make predictions because, for one thing, one couldn't
    predict for sure what was going to happen. Second, if we had started
    predicting -- even in our intelligence reports -- that there might be
    a coup, this would have leaked and this would have influenced the
    situation in a negative way. So, there were very good reasons for not
    trying to predict this. But understanding there was the possibility
    that's there, understanding that even if it happened, it might
    not succeed, was not as widespread.
    RFE/RL: What had principally changed in Russia that led them
    to be defeated?
    Matlock: I don't think you can select a single one, but
    mainly, I think, Gorbachev's opening up created the feeling that
    the system had to change, that it had not produced what it was
    supposed to, and that they people who wanted to put the clamps down
    wanted to turn back to the past. And that had to be resisted.
    RFE/RL: Today, 15 years after this event, how would you
    assess the coup?
    Matlock: I think that without that attempted coup d'etat,
    the Soviet Union in some form would have lasted much longer. So, if
    people, think that tragedy was caused in their lives by the breakup
    of the Soviet Union, then the coup brought it about. It was not going
    to preserve it. I think that's one thing.
    Second, I would say it was not the breakup of the Soviet
    Union that has caused so much the distress that people have felt. It
    was the inability of the system to change from one system, which was
    getting nowhere, to a different one. And this is a very difficult
    process, one without clear historical precedent. But I'm sure
    that there would have been some sort of union -- not of all 15
    republics. One of the things that had to be understood was that they
    really had to let the three Baltic countries regain their
    independence because trying to hold them was putting a stress on the
    whole system. Second, there were certain other things that needed to
    be done. Gradually, Gorbachev was beginning to do them, although I
    think he no longer had the full support of the power structures, he
    couldn't control them anymore. And it was these structures that
    turned against him, thinking that they could bring back the past,
    when the possibility of doing so had passed.
    RFE/RL: Do you believe that history might have turned out
    somewhat differently had they succeeded? The Soviet Union could have
    survived.
    Matlock: Not if the coup had succeeded, no. If it had
    succeeded, they would have broken away much faster. Good gracious, if
    that coup had held a few more days, they would have had a civil war.
    It would have looked like Yugoslavia. Is that what people wanted? No,
    I'm not saying that. I'm saying if there had not been the
    coup, the Soviet Union could have been preserved for longer -- I
    didn't say forever or even for very long -- longer in some form.
    But that's only if they had not attempted the coup.
    RFE/RL: Today we may basically say that it was for the better
    that the coup happened, that it was defeated, and that Russia is
    moving somewhere.
    Matlock: It is certainly for the better that it was defeated.
    I think the whole area would be better off today, possibly -- one can
    never be certain of these things -- if the coup had never occurred.
    If the coup attempt had never occurred and if the democratization
    process, which was going forward, had been allowed to proceed. Then
    one would have had, I think, a less disruptive democratization than
    occurred. In many ways, the Soviet Union, in the middle of 1991, with
    all the problems it was having, was freer than most of the successor
    states are today. That's the fact of the matter.
    RFE/RL: What is your feeling about Russia's direction
    today?
    Matlock: I think that economically there have been a number
    of encouraging changes. I think that the stability and confidence
    that has returned is a positive thing. I think there are negative
    signs from the standpoint of Russia's future. But I would say
    these are matters for Russians to decide and not matters for
    outsiders to try to teach lessons, because I think every country has
    to find its own way in its own way.

    NEW COUNCIL POINTS TO DIVISIONS IN CHECHEN REPUBLIC'S LEADERSHIP.
    PRAGUE, August 19, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- On October 5, Chechen Prime
    Minister Ramzan Kadyrov will turn 30, the minimum age for candidates
    for the post of pro-Moscow republic head.
    Many observers both in Russia and abroad have long considered
    it a given that Kadyrov will be named to succeed incumbent republic
    head Alu Alkhanov before the end of this year, even though Kadyrov
    has denied harboring any such ambitions.
    A recent visit to Chechnya by a large Russian government
    delegation, whose members were cited in the Russian press as
    unanimously lauding Kadyrov's role in expediting reconstruction
    of the republic's war-shattered infrastructure, has also been
    widely interpreted as reflecting Moscow's backing for Kadyrov.
    Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, however, who has years
    of first-hand experience of developments in Chechnya and elsewhere in
    the North Caucasus, suggested in a recent interview with RFE/RL's
    North Caucasus Service and a subsequent article published in "Novaya
    gazeta" on August 14 that the Russian leadership has finally lost
    patience with Kadyrov, and that the government ministers who traveled
    to Grozny in July ordered him unambiguously to toe the line.
    Politkovskaya further claimed that several Chechen law
    enforcement bodies have "mutinied" against Kadyrov and refused either
    to continue making the requisite payment of a percentage of their
    monthly salary into the Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov Fund, named after
    Ramzan's slain father, or to renew their oath of loyalty to
    Ramzan.
    Kadyrov said in an interview published in "Nezavisimaya
    gazeta" on August 14 that he does not consider himself mature enough
    to assume the role of republic head, and he claimed -- not entirely
    convincingly -- that he dreams of quitting politics altogether.
    Aleksei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center was quoted
    by "Novye izvestia" on August 15 as suggesting that Moscow may shunt
    Kadyrov sideways into some kind of honorific post such as
    Russia's permanent representative to the Organization of the
    Islamic Conference.
    Meanwhile, Alkhanov has launched what appears to be either a
    last-ditch attempt to preclude, or at least delay, his dismissal, or
    alternatively, a move coordinated with Moscow to discredit Kadyrov
    and provide grounds for removing him. On August 11, Alkhanov issued a
    decree establishing an advisory body that will focus on human rights
    issues, law and order, and the interaction between Chechen government
    bodies and federal agencies in the sphere of economic and social
    security. Those are all areas in which Kadyrov and his subordinates
    are widely charged with have ridden roughshod over legal norms.
    Alkhanov's August 11 decree transforms the republic's
    Security Council into a Council for Economic and Social Security. His
    stated rationale for doing so, according to "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on
    August 14, was the law enforcement organs' failure to reduce the
    scale of endemic corruption by arresting offenders and bringing them
    to trial.
    Alkhanov simultaneously appointed as secretary of the new
    council his former chief adviser German Vok, who headed his election
    campaign in Grozny in 2004. Kadyrov was quoted by "Nezavisimaya
    gazeta" on August 14 as saying neither he, other government
    officials, nor the Chechen parliament were informed in advance of the
    impending reorganization of the Security Council. But Alkhanov could
    not have undertaken that reorganization without the prior approval of
    the Kremlin.
    The first session of the new council took place on August 15
    and focused on the situation in those districts of southern Chechnya
    that border Georgia, according to chechnya.gov.ru. Local pro-Moscow
    administrators have accused Russian military units deployed there of
    violations ranging from restricting the access of local residents to
    their homes to illicit logging. Vok rejected attempts by Vladimir
    Ponomaryov, deputy commander of the Federal Border Service
    Administration, to deny or downplay the seriousness of those
    violations, regnum.ru reported on August 16.
    Vok further announced the creation of a commission that will
    address the "misunderstandings" between the Chechen civilian
    population and the Russian military. The primary cause of such
    "misunderstandings" over the past seven years has been the
    indiscriminate recourse by the latter to violence against the former.
    But some observers claim that since the death of
    Kadyrov's father in a terrorist bombing in May 2004, police
    formations subordinate to the younger Kadyrov have superceded the
    Russian military as the primary perpetrators of seemingly arbitrary
    killings and abductions of civilians. Thus if Alkhanov were to
    announce that effective measures have been enacted to prevent such
    abuses by the Russian military, the blame for any future crimes of
    that nature would devolve onto the Chechen government law enforcement
    agencies for which Kadyrov as prime minister is ultimately
    responsible.
    Just days after the creation of Alkhanov's new council,
    Kadyrov's office issued orders to the Interior Ministry to
    investigate reports that local bureaucrats are extorting money from
    residents of Argun and Gudermes (Kadyrov's home town) to finance
    reconstruction work there, kavkaz.memo.ru reported on August 15.
    It was not clear whether those payments were in addition to
    the statutory requirement that all Chechens employed in the public
    sector pay a percentage of their monthly salary into the Akhmed-hadji
    Kadyrov Fund, which finances reconstruction projects, among other
    things. Kadyrov warned that any bureaucrat found guilty of extorting
    money will be punished. (Liz Fuller)

    ***************************************** ****************
    Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.

    The "RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly" is prepared
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