WHAT'S IT LIKE LIVING IN RUSSIA TODAY?

MOSCOW DISPATCH
Secret Society
by Masha Gessen

Post date 03.11.04 | Issue date 03.22.04

For the Western press, the good news from Russia just keeps coming. After President Vladimir Putin appointed Mikhail Fradkov as his new prime minister last week, the Los Angeles Times gushed about his choice, highlighting Fradkov's history as a trade minister and diplomat, and noting that Fradkov "could help head off increasing friction with Europe over such issues as the war in the separatist republic of Chechnya, Russian troops in Georgia and Moldova, and Russia's failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming." The New York Times, in an editorial earlier this month, called Fradkov "a promising choice" who has "been doing what Russia needs to do: reform the administration, get the books in order, combat corruption, halt capital flight and work on Russia's international standing." Only The Washington Post, in a piece titled "russians' fears of kremlin reemerge; influence of putin is discerned behind strong-arm tactics," noted that Fradkov's appointment did nothing to alleviate the fear of government repression spreading through Russia, a fear that has driven 33,000 Russians to seek political asylum in industrialized countries in the past year.

What do these refugees know that both Times do not? For one thing, they may know who Mikhail Fradkov is. Both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times called him "a little-known bureaucrat," and the BBC went so far as to call him an "enigma"--clichés that have been the stock and trade of Russia coverage since Putin became president four years ago. When the Western media calls Putin "enigmatic," it implies that his administration has few consistent principles, no governing ideology, and unclear political loyalties.

That's wrong. While Putin doesn't have a political ideology, he does govern according to a clear set of beliefs about how things should be. Putin, who once served in the KGB, has stacked the Kremlin with former KGB officers. Unsurprisingly, these appointees believe in government dominance over business, civil liberties, and nearly every other aspect of Russian society. Their ascent has been matched by increasingly militant political rhetoric--toward Chechnya or anyone who runs afoul of the Kremlin--and correspondingly heavy-handed action. And, while Fradkov may be portrayed in the West as a "reformer"--in part because he speaks English and Spanish, and has lived in Western Europe as a diplomat--he has close KGB links. And he has already shown himself to be as thuggish as the other former secret police in Putin's Cabinet.

Fradkov is not as powerful as some of Putin's other Cabinet appointees with KGB backgrounds, such as Viktor Ivanov, the deputy head of the presidential administration. But Fradkov has been a civil servant his entire adult life, and he has held a series of Cabinet-level posts in the last dozen years. He is, in other words, very much a known quantity--to anyone who cares to look into his past. In fact, Fradkov appears to have had a classic KGB career. At age 23, he was posted to India as an economic adviser working for the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade. During the Soviet period, this organization existed in part to procure hard currency and put it into the coffers of Communist organizations overseas--activities illegal under most countries' laws. Since the work was highly sensitive, and staffers lived abroad for long stretches of time, they were required to cooperate to some extent with the KGB. In Fradkov's case, the cooperation appears to have been close. There is a year missing from his resumé--between finishing college and going to India--that, in Soviet times, was a telltale sign of KGB training. Nor, during Soviet times, was there any chance that someone of his age and background--he hailed from a provincial Jewish family with no particular party connections--would have received such a lucrative posting if he was not in fact working for the KGB.

Like Putin's other KGB-associated appointees, Fradkov, who is intensely inarticulate in public, combines a love of undercover operations with a penchant for strong-arm tactics. Between 2001 and 2003, Fradkov headed the Russian tax police, where he obtained a reputation as a "reformer" because he tried to close tax loopholes. Yet, under his leadership, the agency adopted a mafioso enforcement style. Tax raids featured masked policemen, and businessmen were forced to lie facedown on the floor while their offices were searched. In early 2003, Fradkov even issued an order directing tax police officers to gather intelligence on "potential violators," a category so broad it defied definition.

In his public statements since being appointed, Prime Minister Fradkov has promised to fight corruption. Yet anyone familiar with Fradkov's past will shudder at the thought. In the past, Fradkov has used the anti-corruption mantle to strike fear into enemies. When he ran the tax police, Fradkov investigated many prominent businessmen, and the tax police turned into a gang of marauding bandits. Worse, when he worked for the Foreign Trade Ministry in the mid-'90s, Fradkov showed that he was not immune to graft himself: In 1995, Russian newspapers reported that he was at the center of a scandal involving the theft of nearly five billion rubles (more than a million dollars) from the Foreign Trade Ministry's budget, which was distributed to ministry employees, including Fradkov himself. The investigation into the scandal was halted when many documents conveniently burned. What's more, the new Prime Minister Fradkov has influential friends, who may try to use his power to settle their own scores. For example, he has close ties to Peter Aven, one of Russia's most powerful bankers. And, though The New York Times praised Fradkov because he "was not involved in the corrupt privatization schemes under Boris Yeltsin," in actuality Fradkov was a key player in privatizing numerous companies in 1994 and 1995.

Fradkov's appointment also coincides with a reorganization of the government eerily reminiscent of Soviet times. Fradkov and Putin are abolishing nearly half the Cabinet portfolios and replacing them with figurehead ministers responsible for huge areas of policy. Actual policy will be made by largely invisible deputies unaccountable to the public. What's more, the Cabinet will essentially be run from the Kremlin: Putin has announced that he is taking personal control of the Foreign Ministry, the Justice Ministry, and several others. Even social and economic policy, supposedly Fradkov's brief, will be managed by the Kremlin: Putin is sending down an aide to take control.

Fradkov's appointment also contains a chilling message about the future of Russian politics. Putin dismissed his former prime minister and named Fradkov just three weeks before a presidential election--a strange move, since it behooves a candidate, even an incumbent assured of victory, to act as though the election results are not preordained. And the law requires that the government resign right after the election, so Putin will have to renominate Fradkov literally days after his confirmation by parliament. The dismissal and appointment showed that Putin no longer even pretends that he could lose office, that he is no longer willing to observe the normal etiquette of the electoral process. The reshuffle is also intended to show that Putin is a man of action. One of the weird but consistent features of Putin's popularity is that Russians are generally unhappy with their lives and with the government's policies. But polls show that they just love Putin. To ensure that this love continues to flower, someone in government has to be ritually sacrificed on occasion. In the long run, however, Putin is sacrificing all of Russia.

Masha Gessen is a Moscow-based journalist who is currently a Nieman fellow at Harvard University.

Just heard the news that Putin has a very good chance for a second term.

The system lacks the basic elements of democratic elections, including independent mass media, courts, and financial sources [..]. Political donors must be confident that they will not be persecuted for their political choices, Yavlinskii said, hinting at the case of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii. Yavlinskii compared the current presidential campaign to a soccer game with no field, no goals, and no game -- just a final score.

decided not to run against President Putin after the 7 December State Duma elections, when it became clear that Russia "lacks the rules for normal political competition," NTV reported. He said that TsIK Chairman Veshnyakov "leans toward one side," and "the party of power [Unified Russia] controls most government ministries, law enforcement and security agencies, and state television channels." [..] He added that the Communist Party continues its alternative count of the December Duma elections, and that it has found violations in about 60,000 of Russia's 92,000 voting precincts.

'AGAINST ALL' COMES IN SECOND IN TWO REGIONAL RACES...
Gubernatorial or presidential elections were held in 10 regions on 14 March, with the incumbents taking six of the races. In Krasnodar Krai with 83 percent of the ballots counted, Governor Aleksandr Tkachev won a second term with 84.1 percent of the vote, compared with 7.6 percent for "against all," which came in second, Regnum reported. In Murmansk Oblast, Governor Yurii Yevdokimov won a third term with 77.1 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. His closest rival, "against all," received 10.5 percent. Both races were considered by local analysts to be "alternative-less."

The Russian Parliament is preparing to pass a law that would ban demonstrations in most public places, reversing one of the most important rights won as the former Soviet Union came to an end.

The bill passed the first of three readings on Wednesday by a vote of 294 to 137, reflecting the dominance of supporters of President Vladimir Putin.

The draft law prohibits rallies outside government buildings, embassies and international organisations, on main roads, near schools, hospitals, stadiums, concert halls and religious centres, and at pipelines and environmentally hazardous sites.

Liberals and communists branded it a blow against democracy just two weeks after Mr Putin won a second term in office by a landslide.

"This would be the end of political life in the streets," said Sergei Reshulsky, a member of the Communist Party, which has asserted itself over the years in street rallies.

[Members of the liberal] Yabloko Party were among the demonstrators who rallied outside parliament with signs reading: "No to a police state". Rally organisers had not obtained the necessary permit, and the demonstration was broken up by the police and several were briefly detained, including the deputy head of Yabloko, Sergei Mitrokhin

[..] the proposed law includes a clause that would allow officials to block gatherings if "their aim contradicted the constitution, generally accepted norms of public morality and federal law".

[..] The Yabloko leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, joined by a Duma liberal, Vladimir Ryzhkov, said he would challenge the law in the Constitutional Court, although it is rare for the judges to overturn legislation backed by the Kremlin.

As the United Russia majority in the State Duma gave preliminary approval to a bill outlawing protests near government buildings Wednesday, pro-democracy activists staged a rally outside the Duma's main entrance to insist on their right to do just that.

The bill bans rallies and demonstrations outside presidential residences and buildings occupied by federal, regional or local authorities, as well as foreign embassies and offices of international organizations.

Critics called it a move to distance legislators from the people they represent and a giant setback to civil rights. Its pro-Kremlin sponsors called the legislation a logical step in the fight against terrorism and said it was meant to protect citizens' safety.

[..] The bill passed with 294 votes in favor, almost exclusively from United Russia, and 137 opposed, but not before critics from minority parties spoke out against it.

Deputy Sergei Popov, of Yabloko, argued to his colleagues in remarks carried on television that thousands of people went to the street to help bring down the Soviet Union, and with this proposed law, that kind of demonstration would be forbidden.

[..] Besides government buildings, the new restrictions would apply to major roads, pipelines, railroads and environmentally hazardous industrial sites. Also blacklisted would be cultural venues, stadiums, hospitals, schools, kindergartens and religious centers, among others.

[Greenpeace] warned that a section of the bill giving authorities the right reject requests for protests that "contradict moral norms" could be abused due to its vague language.

WHAT'S IT LIKE LIVING IN RUSSIA TODAY?

While they moved quickly to address Mr. Putin's concerns, some administration officials concede that they nonetheless have growing doubts about the nature of his leadership - not just over the brutal crackdown on the rebels in Chechnya that seems not to be working, but also over other steps that hark back to a Russian authoritarianism of old: prosecution of dissenters and business leaders, fettering of the free press, distribution of Russian assets to cronies, meddling in the internal affairs of Georgia and other neighbors, and the country's peremptory cancellation last year of exploration deals with American oil companies. "The Russians are sending very mixed signals right now," said a senior administration official. [..]

Former officials echoed that view. "Over the past couple of years, people in the U.S. government have had this nervous sense that the Putin policy in Chechnya might be wrong, but a suspicion that it might work," said Stephen R. Sestanovich, a top Russia hand in the Clinton administration. "What the last two weeks have done is explode that idea. We're no longer worried that what Putin is doing is just unsavory or grotesque. It's just a failure."

U.S. debate highlights Russian censorship
State-controlled TV cleanses candidates' criticism of PutinUnder Kremlin control

Under Putin, all national broadcasts have been brought under Kremlin control, a point noted by Kerry in the debate.

And over the last month, in the wake of a wave of terror attacks that have undermined Putin's pledge to bring law and order to Russia, there have been more media casualties.

After the publication of graphic photographs of the siege of a school in southern Russia blamed on Chechen separatists, the Kremlin-connected owner of the daily Izvestia fired the paper's editor. The attack in Beslan killed more than 330 people, many of them children, and served as a reminder of the failure of Putin to bring an end to the Chechen conflict.

[..] in a sign of the media's frustration, last month the Russian Television Academy awarded prizes to three programs that have been banned from the airwaves. Members of the academy called the action a "protest vote." [..]

Media restrictions

The Russian Duma, or parliament, dominated by pro-Kremlin parties, plans to introduce legislation restricting how the media can cover terrorist attacks. Russian media coverage of the siege in Beslan was widely criticized. In one example of coverage, state television cut to a movie as Russian troops battled the terrorists.

[..] Radio and print, with their smaller audiences, are also feeling pressure to toe the Kremlin line.

Echo Moskviy plans to air the debate, translated into Russian, in full on Saturday but expects its regular sparring with its corporate parent, state-controlled Gazprom, to continue.

"It's very important for Russians to see a presidential campaign that includes criticism," Venediktov said of Echo Moskviy's plans to air the U.S. presidential debate. "It's very important to see what other politicians in the world really publicly think of Russia."

Democracy and terrorism

After the Beslan siege, President Putin introduced legislation that will end the direct election of regional governors in favor of Kremlin candidates and appoint Duma deputies based on party affiliation rather than the choice of voters. Putin said the changes to the electoral system would bolster the country's ability to fight terrorism, though he did not detail the link between the two policies.

Loyal governors repeatedly appear on Russian television voicing their support for the measures. Meantime, Russian newspapers have reported that the consolidation of power was planned well in advance and the Kremlin exploited the terror attacks for political gain.

This week, over 100 American and European foreign policy specialists and past and present leaders wrote a letter to President Bush and other NATO leaders accusing Putin of turning Russia back to authoritarian rule.

In Thursday's debate, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Bush whether he misjudged Putin by placing more importance on his partnership in the war on terrorism than the setbacks to Russia's democratic process. [..]