Archives for May 2013

On Guriev

This about Politics, tagged , , , was written by for on May 31, 2013

Apparently he fled to France after senior “systemic liberal” sources in the government told him he was not safe staying in Russia. So he played it safe.

Interpretations about. The return of Stalinism; a new critical phase in the siloviki vs. civiliki clan war; Putin’s vindictiveness against a supporter of Khodorkovsky.

The only problem, at least with the latter explanation? Sergey Guriev himself denies it is so, according to Ben Aris at the FT:

The whole episode is embarrassing for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been calling for improvements to Russia’s investment climate. According to Guriev, Putin has reassured him that he will come to no harm, but clearly Guriev was not confident that even Putin could protect him. …

While Guriev has been outspoken on economic issues and warned that the current policies will lead to economic stagnation, he is usually a lot more circumspect when it comes to politics. He was again on Friday when asked who was to blame for the attack.
“I have no complaints about either Vladimir Putin or Dmitry Medvedev. I heard them say that nothing is threatening me and that they will not interfere in the work of the investigative committee. I respect such an approach and believe that it is wrong to ask the president of the country to interfere on each occasion,” Guriyev told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

So unless you believe Ben Aris to be making this up, or consider that Guriev is trying to inveigle himself back into favor (“No hard feelings! It was all just a misunderstanding”), his words have to be taken at face value.

That leaves us with over-enthusiastic investigators who went way beyond the remit of legal acceptability – at least if Guriev’s version of his interactions with them (e.g. the demand to hand over the last 5 years of his emails, etc.) are likewise correct. Investigators whom Bastrykin or Putin are, for whatever reason, either won’t, can’t, or just haven’t yet reined back in.

PS. The Presidential Committee on Human Rights under Medvedev became something more accurately described as the Presidential Committee on Khodorkovsky’s Rights. Why and how an official tax-payer funded grouping devolved to lobbying the interests of a single private individual is, in my view, an entirely valid matter for investigation. AFAIK, however, Guriev himself was only tangentially related to it however, doing little more than giving his “expert opinion” on the issue for their consideration.

Translation: Egor Kholmogorov – Europe’s Week of Human Sacrifice

This , about Society, tagged , , , was written by for on May 29, 2013

Russian conservative Egor Holmogorov argues that Muslim immigrants in Europe and Russia can’t have their cake and eat it too: Either they take responsibility for “lone wolf” terrorists, or they stop demanding privileges as a community.

Human Sacrifices

Europe has just undergone a week of human sacrifices.

1

The French writer Dominique Venner committed suicide at the altar of Notre Dame de Paris.

At first, it was suggested it was a protest against the legalization of gay marriage in France. But the note Venner left behind – who was, incidentally, a specialist on Russia and the history of our Civil War – allows us to place his action in a wider context: This was not so much a protest against a specific law, as against the cultural, civilizational, religious, and moral suicide of Europe. Let me acquaint the reader with the full text:

“I am healthy in body and mind, and I am filled with love for my wife and children. I love life and expect nothing beyond, if not the perpetuation of my race and my mind. However, in the evening of my life, facing immense dangers to my French and European homeland, I feel the duty to act as long as I still have strength. I believe it necessary to sacrifice myself to break the lethargy that plagues us. I give up what life remains to me in order to protest and to found. I chose a highly symbolic place, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, which I respect and admire: she was built by the genius of my ancestors on the site of cults still more ancient, recalling our immemorial origins.

While many men are slaves of their lives, my gesture embodies an ethic of will. I give myself over to death to awaken slumbering consciences. I rebel against fate. I protest against poisons of the soul and the desires of invasive individuals to destroy the anchors of our identity, including the family, the intimate basis of our multi-millennial civilization. While I defend the identity of all peoples in their homes, I also rebel against the crime of the replacement of our people.

The dominant discourse cannot leave behind its toxic ambiguities, and Europeans must bear the consequences. Lacking an identitarian religion to moor us, we share a common memory going back to Homer, a repository of all the values ​​on which our future rebirth will be founded once we break with the metaphysics of the unlimited, the baleful source of all modern excesses.

I apologize in advance to anyone who will suffer due to my death, first and foremost to my wife, my children, and my grandchildren, as well as my friends and followers. But once the pain and shock fade, I do not doubt that they will understand the meaning of my gesture and transcend their sorrow with pride. I hope that they shall endure together. They will find in my recent writings intimations and explanations of my actions.”

Despite the blasphemy implicit in suicide, Venner acted, nonetheless, as a man of the Christian faith. In this sense, his action was the opposite of that of another “hero” of the contemporary European resistance, Anders Breivik. Breivik carried out a massacre in protest, killing people who for the most part had nothing to do with Norway’s immigration policy.

He acted like his Viking forebears, who, if one was to believe the sagas, bestowed the title of “Child Lover” on those rare warriors who refused to impale babies on the end of a spear. Breivik, by the way, behaved honorably in court, and was fully prepared to face the death penalty if he was sentenced to it; and in the end, he achieved a moral victory in his case – a most astounding outcome, considering the sheer ghastliness of his crime.

Venner took an entirely different road.

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Russia Needs To Develop Its “Hard” Soft Power

This , about Geopolitics, tagged , , was written by for , on May 28, 2013

My latest for VoR/US-Russia Experts panel:

I think we have to make a distinction here between “soft” soft power and “hard” soft power.

The US’ “soft” soft power is, of course, overwhelming. By “soft” soft power, I mean its accumulated cultural capital: The popularity of the English language, Hollywood, the Ivy League, Apple and American Pie, and so forth. If this were a Civilization game, the Americans would be maxing out the “culture” meter. There is no feasible way for Russia to ever overtake the US in this respect, if only because its limited population constrains the ultimate scope of its civilization (China is another matter).

What is of greater interest, and CAN be influenced relatively cheaply, is “hard” soft power. By “hard” soft power, I mean the ability to harness support for a sovereign internal and foreign policy line. “Hard” soft power is promoted by media and cultural organizations catering to foreign audiences, and can be measured by indicators such as a country’s international approval rating, which the BBC World Service measures every year. This rating can, in turn, affect diplomatic influence, investment attractiveness, and promulgate a general sense of moral vindication among the citizenry.

Lavishing resources into raising international approval ratings – that is, building up “hard” soft power – can produce vast returns on investment. There are several ways this can be done:

(1) Avoiding embarrassing situations so far as possible, and responding to them in a timely and comprehensive way AS SOON AS they arise. The entire Magnitsky debacle is a case study in how NOT to manage a genuine screw-up followed up by an oligarchic PR attack. Khodorkovsky is an earlier example. The ECHR eventually concluded that the case was NOT politically motivated, but so far as everyone and their dog is concerned the Menatep bandits are martyrs for democracy. The scope of the PR failure here is astounding. But the Russian government just doesn’t seem to care, leaving the heavy lifting to bloggers (!) like PoliTrash.

(2) Countering negative “hard” soft power. As one of the few countries to pursue a truly sovereign foreign policy – China is another example; so is Venezuela and Iran – it is not surprising that Russia would come under intensive information attack. One need do little more than recall Western coverage of the 2008 South Ossetian War, in which the victim was literally presented as the aggressor. Even institutions like the EU were later forced to acknowledge the truth, but no matter – the first week of coverage permanently implanted the perception it was big bad Russia that attacked plucky democratic Georgia, and neocons continue to push the lie even though a 5 minute perusal of Wikipedia would totally discredit it.

Information attacks are an inescapable price of sovereignty. However, the effects of such attacks can be minimized by establishing a special office that could coordinate the writing of press complaints to combat factually wrong and/or defamatory coverage; working with non-Western countries to reduce Western dominance in various international financial and regulatory bodies; promoting the integration of the Russian media space into the global media space, first and foremost via the Internet; creating and popularizing alternate, more objective indices of freedom and corruption than the politicized Transparency International and Freedom House ratings.

(3) Building up the keystone institutions of “hard” soft power. Every self-respecting country needs a channel or two to promote its views abroad (The BBC, France 24, RFERL/Voice of America, CNBC, Al Jazeera) and Russia, through RT, RIA, the Voice of Russia, and RBTH, performs solidly in this respect. But other aspects need touching up. For instance, the main vector of Russian cultural influence abroad is Rossotrudnichestvo, which no foreigner can even pronounce properly; compare and contrast with the British Council, the Goethe-Institut, or the Confucius Academies. It definitely has to step up its game here: Rebrand (Pushkin Schools?), and expand.

“Hard” soft power is fairly easy to increase with targeted investments (unlike “soft” soft power), and it is comparatively very cheap (unlike “hard” military-industrial power). There are no Great Power wars on the horizon, which makes the vast spending on military modernization rather questionable; while the task of building up “soft” soft power isn’t a matter of years, but of decades or even centuries. In contrast, “hard” soft power can be maximized relatively cheaply and quickly. Although Russia is much better in this respect than it was even a decade ago, there are still many low-hanging fruits left to picked.

Translation: Pressure on the Square

This , about Society, tagged , , , , was written by for on May 25, 2013

Were the events at Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, on May 6, 2012, the results of a police provocation, or were “opposition” provocateurs, either willingly or unwittingly acting in the interests of foreign powers, responsible? Kommersant’s Grigory Tumanov and Vyacheslav Kozlov try to find out.

Pressure on the Square

Could it have been calculated beforehand what would happen at Bolotnaya?

On Wednesday the case of 12 persons accused of rioting on May 6 at Bolotnaya Square during the “March of millions” was presented in court. It is expected that the proceedings will begin to be take place in June. As evidential material, which is also at the disposal of “Ъ” [Translator: Russian alphabet hard sign indicating the newspaper “Kommersant” that has its name spelt archaically in Russian using such a sign thus: Коммерсантъ], concerning the “big Bolotnaya case”, indicating that something rather more than a peaceful rally had been planned to take place on the square, and that not only factions of oppositionists knew about this, but also the authorities, defense lawyers are saying that the authorities have decided to take advantage of this matter in order to launch a major political counterattack.

By May 6, 2012 the euphoria that had gripped the protest movement since its emergence in the winter had markedly diminished. The rallies on Bolotnaya Square that had raised tens of thousands who were unhappy at the outcome of the State Duma elections had come and gone and the authorities had even expressed their willingness to liberalize the political system. But for the protesters their chief disappointment was still to come. In March, Vladimir Putin won the presidential election, and the only thing that the opposition leaders were ready and willing to do as regards this matter was to come out onto the streets on May 6, the eve of the inauguration, and to assemble on Bolotnaya Square under the slogan “Don’t Let A Thief Into The Kremlin!” The peaceful rally ended with criminal proceedings as a result of the riot. The defendants in this case number almost 30 people. Many members of the protest movement, Ilya Yashin for example, still say that the battle on the square was started by unidentified masked provocateurs who were members of movements close to the Kremlin. But, as shown by the presented case evidence, which “Kommersant” has managed to see, the fight at Bolotnaya was the result of a delicate game played by the authorities against the opposition leaders, who now appear discredited, and their supporters in the protest movement, who will now think twice about going to rallies – if indeed they ever attend another one at all..

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Translation: Russia to Build 11 Centers of Tolerance

This about Society, tagged , , , was written by for on May 25, 2013

Russia is to spend 1.5 billion rubles building “Centers of Tolerance” to improve inter-ethnic relations in the next few years. Is this a good use of resources? Pyotr Kozlov examines the issue.

The Ministry of Regional Development to Build Centers of Tolerance for 1.5 Billion Rubles

The Ministry of Regional Development plans to start constructing Centers of Tolerance all across Russia from 2014, where anyone can go to learn more about the culture and traditions of Russia’s peoples. These learning centers will appear in 11 regions of the country: Saint-Petersburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Yekaterinburg, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Irkutsk, and Birobidzhan. According to preliminary calculations, as we were told by the Ministry’s head Igor Slyunyayev, the problem will require about 1.5 billion rubles in financing, with the first centers slated to open by the beginning of 2015.

According to the Slyunyayev, all the sites will be built to one standard design. “The main task is to revive the traditions of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence that have always characterized Russia,” he clarified.

“These Centers will help promote dialog, discuss hard issues, and tell people about how Russians live in Dagestan, Jews in the Far East, or Ukrainians in Tatarstan. We need to talk more about religion, culture, traditions, and to once again return to the roots of things – that we are one people, who have always lived as one family,” the Minister says.

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Translation: Dark Clouds of Revanchism

This about History, tagged , , , , was written by for on May 25, 2013

Izvestiya runs a piece by political scientist Avigdor Eskin on historical revisionism in Eastern Europe (especially in the Baltic countries and Ukraine) pertaining to World War II.

Dark Clouds of Revanchism

For more than 20 years, Nazi revanchism in Eastern Europe has been allowed to roam freely in the post-Soviet space. Immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union, supporters of Bandera suddenly crawled from under the rocks in Ukraine and the Baltics, declaring themselves the real victors of World War II. Seemingly sacred truths of the Great Patriotic war have been subjected to cynical erosion, thus paving the way for marches of SS veterans in Riga and Tallin and the glorification of Nazi criminals at the state level in Ukraine.

It should be noted that the West and the US have done nothing to prevent this “march of revanchism”. To the contrary, in some cases, they have even encouraged and aided nationalists of different countries, who later turned out to be neo-Nazis.

The current Russian leadership is well aware of what the meaning is of what is happening now. After all, the living memory of common victory did not only lead to a healthy awakening of patriotism in Russia but also laid the basis for the process of integration in the former Soviet Union. Moscow is waging a war against this attempts to rewrite history and turning Nazi criminals into heroes. However, even in contemporary Russia the battle against the “Brown Tide” has not been a complete success, let alone in Ukraine, the Baltics or Moldova.

Attempts to rehabilitate the Vlasov and Kaminskiy armies were, luckily, not successful  But in Moscow there are clubs of intellectuals which, by a strange coincidence, are namesakes not only of the medieval Teutonic Knights but also of fascist divisions of World War II. Influential liberals, meanwhile, in equating SMERSH with the SS, they are wittingly and unwittingly continuing a multi-year campaign to equate the Nazi monsters with their victims.

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Translation: Russia’s Growth Rate may Plummet in the Next Decade

This about Economy, tagged , , was written by for on May 24, 2013

According to several experts, Russia may be facing a period of protracted low growth rates now that its GDP per capita has recently exceeded $16,000. Vedomosti’s Olga Kuvshinova has the details.

Russia may Experience Minimal Growth in the Next 10 Years

A variety of reasons are brought up to explain the Russian economy’s slowdown to 1.6% growth in the first quarter by experts and officials: A stalling in investment, private consumption, weak external demand. But there is a one factor that is more critical, according to Ivan Chakarov of Renaissance Capital. It is, in fact, quite typical for quickly growing economies to slow down once they exhaust their “advantage of backwardness” – that is, the possibility of obtaining high profits thanks to low costs. After this, countries collide against barriers to growth, falling into a so-called “middle-income trap.” This is precisely what is occurring in Russia now, according to him.

This trap is typical set off when a country’s GDP per capita approaches $16,000. This year, according to Chakarov’s calculations, it will constitute $16,016.

The countries of Western Europe slowed down in a big way in the 1970s, South Korea – in 1995, Singapore and Hong Kong – at the start of the 1980s, Taiwan – at the end of the 1990s. All of these cases, according to Chakarov, were simultaneous with the crossing of the $16,000 per capita mark (in 2005 prices).

Russia is the first of the BRICs to fall into this trap, notes Chakarov. China will hit this problem in 2020, Brazil – in 2024, and India – in 2038.

Countries that fall into this trap typically lose almost two thirds of their previous levels of yearly growth, says Chakarov, citing research from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the US. As regards Russia, this could mean that our previous rate of growth of approximately 4.5% (adjusting for the recession in 2009) may fall to 1.6% – that is, exactly the same as the figure for the first quarter.

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Translation: When do Russian Officials become Democrats?

This about Politics, tagged , , was written by for on May 23, 2013

When they are fed to other bureaucrats. Or so argues Mikhail Rostovsky in an op-ed for Moskovskij Komsomolets, in analyzing the resignations of Surkov and Alexei Chesnakov.

Surkov for Breakfast, Medvedev for Lunch, and where do Russian Democrats come from?

Solve this riddle. What does it mean when you hear the clatter of plates, knives, and forks, loud chomping noises, and the desperate shrieks of the devoured: “I’m leaving the party! There have appeared some serious ideological differences between us!”

You haven’t guessed? Shame on your bald (and not so bald) heads! This is the acoustical accompaniment to the Russian political process – or to be more concrete, the process of the change of command at the top of the Russian vlast.

In our not so distant past, there was in Russia a fairly important official, the right hand man of the “king of public politics” Vladislav Surkov – Alexei Chesnakov. He served, this official of ours Chesnakov, and he served well, promptly implementing all the directives of “the party and the government.” But then, a new time came upon us. Neither Vladislav Surkov, nor his team remain in the Kremlin. And they “slighted” Alexei Chesnakov – they didn’t allow him to get elected to the Senate. And our model public servant Chesnakov “saw the light,” so to speak, and left United Russia, explaining the move by referring to ideological differences.

“I have accumulated some baggage of stylistic disagreements with the party. I do not agree with some of United Russia’s legislative initiatives, including those concerning regulations of the media space and the Internet. Apart from that, most bills aren’t discussed at all by the party’s regional structures, which stymies a full debate,” as Chesnakov said in his own words.

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Russia’s Best Leader was… Brezhnev!

This about History, tagged , , was written by for on May 23, 2013

In a recent poll conducted by the Levada Center, Leonid Brezhnev was revealed to be Russians’ favorite ruler of the 20th century. Do you see his era as a Golden Age, or as a zastoi?

Russian Attitudes to Former Heads of State

best-russian-leaders-poll

Translation: Why Putin Closed Down Open Government

This about Society, tagged , , was written by for on May 22, 2013

Liberals think Putin put the Open Government Initiative, advanced by the US, on hold because he is a thief. The blogger Evgeny Super, however, argues that it is a matter of protecting Russia’s sovereignty.

On the Fate of “Open Government” in Russia: Why Vladimir Putin Froze the Initiative

Vladimir Putin canceled Russia’s joining of the international “Open Government Partnership” (OGP) that had been planned for the second half of this year.  This news immediately gave rise to outraged reactions of western experts and accusations of unwillingness to integrate into the “civilized” part of the world. I will now describe what this partnership is, what the critics are unhappy about, and why we’re avoiding participating in it.

History of OGP

For the first time the idea of creating an international “Open Government” was aired by then head of the US State Dept Hillary Clinton in June 2011. Following that, it was supported by Barack Obama. If you clear its verbose declarations from traditional American pathos, the gist is as follows: OGP is a voluntary partnership whose participating states wish to reformat their government in accordance with American templates.

In the opinion of the OGP originator (the US authorities), the modern world suffers from the fact that ordinary citizens can’t influence state decisions, government are closed, which breeds corruption and suppression of various freedoms. OGP is a type of a club where countries that want to correct this unfortunate state of affairs join voluntarily. In effect, the new members publicly admit that they wish to build a western type society and it’s as if they apply to join the “civilized world”.

In order to join OGP, one must comply with number of not very onerous requirements, sign its Declaration, submit a plan of action, and allow civil activists and international experts to inspect the implementation of the said plan.

It’s expected that the main effort of OGP member countries will be directed toward improving the efficiency of government organization, strengthening of their openness, increasing efficiency of resource administration, improving corporate governance and creating a more secure society. That, and other trite mantras.

On 20 September 2011 another 7 states joined the Declaration at the instigation from the USA, and as of now, 50 more countries have supported the partnership.

I’m sure that at this point the readers will surely ask: Why would a state need this partnership and what prevents it from fighting corruption, inefficiency, and closed nature of government without it?

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