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Feb 18 2005

Democracy in Russia

Fri Feb 18,12:24 PM ET Op/Ed – The Weekly Standard

Based on testimony delivered before the U.S. Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations.

Bruce P. Jackson

Washington (The Daily Standard) – (1) What are the necessary
institutional requirements for a successor state of the former Soviet
Union to succeed in a transition to democracy? And how have these
institutions, which would be essential for a democratizing Russia,
fared in President Putin’s Russia?

(2) What policy is President Putin pursuing towards democracy in
Russia and towards the prospect of positive democratic change in
Russia’s neighbors?

(3) Has Russia become hostile to both the democratic values and the
institutions of the West? And, if so, what should be done about it?

I

IN RETROSPECT, we now recognize that the arrest of Mikhail
Khodorkovsky on October 25, 2003 by heavily armed, special forces
troops was the watershed event in the deterioration of democracy in
Russia. Prior to this arrest, the soft suppression of democratic
forces appeared to some as a manifestation of Moscow’s historic
political insecurity and an understandable effort to “manage’
democracy and ameliorate the excesses of, and societal stress from,
the Yeltsin era. Subsequent to October 2003, it became apparent that
what President Putin had undertaken was a comprehensive crackdown on
each and every perceived rival to state power and the re-imposition
of the traditional Russian state, autocratic at home and imperial
abroad.

However, if we focus only on the animus President Putin has towards
Khodorkovksy and the resultant “show trials” of Yukos executives, we
risk missing the breadth of the crackdown on democratic forces and
risk failing to see the logic of authoritarian and possibly even
dictatorial power behind the events in Russia over the past two
years.

Let me contrast the situation in Russia with the positive
developments in Georgia during the Rose Revolution in November 2003
and in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution of December 2004.
Democratic leaders in CIS countries and outside analysts have paid
considerable attention to the attributes of Georgian and Ukrainian
society that allowed their respective transitions to peacefully sweep
away autocratic regimes despite their total control of the hard power
of the security services and military forces.

While the encouragement of Western democracies and the prospect of
membership in such important institutions as the European Union (news
– web sites) and NATO (news – web sites) have been important factors
in the thinking of reformers in CIS countries, the preconditions of
democratic change in the former Soviet Union appear to be:

(1) An extensive civic society comprised of multiple NGO’s where
pluralism can develop;

(2) Independent political parties which can contest elections;

(3) An opposition bloc in Parliament which can offer alternative
policies and serve as a training ground for future governance;

(4) The beginnings of a business community which can financially
support an opposition as a counterweight to the regime’s use of
government resources and corrupt business allies;

(5)An independent media with the capability to distribute printed
materials and with access to at least one independent television
station; and

(6) Civilian control of the military and security services adequate
to ensure that armed force will not be used to suppress civil
dissent.

Regrettably, Putin and the former KGB officers who surround him, the
so-called “Siloviki,” conducted an analysis of the preconditions of
democratic change, similar to the one I have just outlined, but
reached a radically different conclusion. Rather than support and
encourage these positive developments in post-conflict and
post-Soviet states, President Putin evidently resolved to destroy the
foundations of democracy in Russia and actively to discourage their
development in countries neighboring Russia and beyond. And this is
precisely what he has done.

(1) In May 2004, Putin formalized the attack on the civil sector in
his state-of-the-nation address by accusing NGO’s of working for
foreign interests and against the interests of Russia and its
citizens. Coupled with the conviction of academics Igor Sutyagin and
Valentin Danilov on fabricated charges of espionage, the NGO sector
in Russia has been effectively silenced.

(2) Human Rights Watch reports that “opposition parties have been
either decimated or eliminated altogether, partially as a result of
the deeply flawed elections of December 2003.”

(3) By 2004, United Russia, Putin’s party in the Duma, controlled
two-thirds of all seats and enough votes to enact legislation of any
kind and to change the constitution to suit the President. On
December 12, 2004, Putin was thus able to sign into law a bill ending
the election of regional governors and giving the President the right
to appoint Governors, thereby eliminating the possibility of any
parliamentary or regional opposition.

(4) The destruction of Yukos and the seizure of its assets marked the
beginning of the destruction of the business class, but do not fully
convey the scale of re-nationalization. The Kremlin has made no
secret that Russia claims all oil and gas reserves in the former
Soviet Union as well as ownership of the pipelines which transit the
territory of the former Soviet Union. The outflow of investment from
Russia over the past year and a half confirms that the business base
which could support alternative political views inside Russia is
shrinking rapidly. The elimination of a politically active business
community was precisely what President Putin intended to bring about
by the arrest and subsequent show trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

(5) Of all the areas where the Russian Government has suppressed the
possibility of democracy, it has been most comprehensive and ruthless
in its attack on independent media. All significant television and
radio stations are now under state control. The editor-in-chief of
Izvestia was fired for attempting to cover the tragic terrorist
attack on the school children of Beslan, and two journalists
attempting to travel to Beslan appear to have been drugged by
security services. The state of journalism in Russia is so precarious
that Amnesty International has just reported that security services
are targeting independent journalists for harassment, disappearances
and killing. It should surprise no one that the distinguished
Committee to Protect Journalists lists Russia as one of the World’s
Worst Places to Be a Journalist in its annual survey.

(6) Among the most alarming of recent developments, however, is the
return of the KGB to power in the Presidential Administration.
According to Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a leading Russian sociologist,
former KGB officers are regaining power at every level of government
and now account for 70% of regional government leaders. Other
analysts state that the number of former secret police in Putin’s
government is 300% greater than the number in the Gorbachev
government. In this situation, there is a high probability that
military and security services would be used to suppress civil
dissent and, indeed, are already being used to this effect.

If the conditions which supported democratic change and reform in
Georgia and Ukraine are any guide, President Putin has orchestrated a
sustained and methodical campaign to eliminate not only democratic
forces in civil and political life, but also the possibility of such
forces arising again in the future. I do not think that it is
accurate to say that democracy is in retreat in Russia. Democracy has
been assassinated in Russia.

II

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov wrote, “A country that
does not respect the rights of its own people will not respect the
rights of its neighbors,” and this is an admonition to hold in mind
when assessing the overall direction of Putin’s policies. Rather than
simply label Russia as an autocracy or as a borderline dictatorship,
it is probably more accurate and useful for this Committee to regard
Russia as an “anti-democratic state” locked in what its leadership
imagines is a competition with the West for control of the
“post-Soviet space.”

President Putin’s initial argument for “managed democracy” rested on
his belief that the sometimes unpredictable quality of liberal
democracy could weaken the security of the Russian state unless it
were subject to a substantial degree of state control. Whether or not
he actually believed this, he quickly advanced to a more militant
conviction that independent political parties, NGO’s and journalists,
by questioning the wisdom of his policy towards Chechnya (news – web
sites), were effectively allies of terrorism. It is a short walk from
the authoritarian view that domestic freedom must be curtailed in
wartime to the dictatorial conclusion that all opposition and dissent
is treasonous. By 2004, President Putin had arrived at the
dictatorial conclusion.

To put it bluntly, the growing view in Putin’s inner circle is that
in order to regain the status of a world power in the 21st century,
Russia must be undemocratic at home (in order to consolidate the
power of the state) and it must be anti-democratic in its “near
abroad” (in order to block the entry of perceived political
competitors, such as the European Union or NATO, invited into
post-Soviet space by new democracies.) The war on terror is not
central to this calculation and is little more than something to
discuss with credulous Americans from time to time.

Again, the statements of Gleb Pavlovsky confirm understandable
suspicions about Russian intentions. Shortly after the election of
Victor Yushchenko as President of Ukraine, Pavlovsky urged the
Kremlin to adopt a policy of “pre-emptive counter-revolution” towards
any neighbor of Russia which manifested politically dangerous
democratic proclivities. Another of the so-called
“polit-technologists” Sergei Markov, who also advises President
Putin, has called for the formation of a Russian organization to
counter the National Endowment for Democracy, whose purpose would be
to prevent European and American NGO’s from reaching democratic
movements anywhere in the Commonwealth of Independent States, in
other words in post-Soviet space. (There is, of course, not the
slightest reference to countering militant fundamentalism or Islamic
terrorist cells in any of this.)

In December 2004, Russia vetoed the continuation of the OSCE (news –
web sites)-led border monitoring operation which polices the mountain
passes along Georgia’s borders with Ingushetiya, Chechnya and
Dagestan in the North Caucasus. Most observers believe the removal of
international monitors is intended to allow Russia complete freedom
to conduct military and paramilitary operations inside Georgia under
the pretext of chasing terrorists. Russia has continued to hand out
Russian passports to secessionists in Abhazia and South Ossetia, and,
despite its multiple international commitments to withdraw its
military forces from Soviet-era bases in Georgia, continues to occupy
and reinforce these bases. In a word, Putin’s policy towards Georgia
is indistinguishable from the 19th century policies of Czarist Russia
towards the easily intimidated states of the South Caucasus.

In Moldova, since December 2003 when the Russian negotiators proposed
in the Kozak Memorandum to legalize the permanent stationing of
Russian troops in Transdnistria, Russia has worked tirelessly to
exacerbate tensions between Transdnistria and Chisinau and to prevent
the demilitarization of Transdnistria. As a result, Russia has been
able to keep Moldovan leadership sufficiently weak, divided, and
corrupt so as to be incapable of enacting the reforms necessary for
democratization. Transdnistria remains exclusively a criminal
enterprise under Moscow’s protection and the largest export hub of
illicit arms traffic in the Black Sea region. And remember, Russia
shares no border with Moldova, a fact which adds to the imperial
character of Russian intervention.

In Ukraine, the massive scale of Russian interference and President
Putin’s personal involvement in the recent fraudulent presidential
elections is well-known. Most analysts believe that the Kremlin spent
in excess of $300m and countless hours of state television time in
the attempt to rig the election for Victor Yanukovich. What may be
less well known to this Committee is that explosives used in the
botched assassination attempt on Victor Yushchenko and the dioxin
poison that almost succeeded in killing him both almost certainly
came from Russia. Western diplomats and numerous Ukrainian officials
in Kiev say privately that the investigation into these repeated
assassination attempts is expected to lead to Russian organized crime
and, ultimately, will be traced to Russian intelligence services.
There is mounting evidence that the murder of political opposition
figures in neighboring countries is seen by some factions of the
Russian security services, such as the GRU, as being a legitimate
tool of statecraft, as it was in the dark years of the Soviet Union.

With regard to Belarus, President Putin’s government has been an
accomplice with Alexander Lukashenko in the construction and
maintenance of what has been often called “the last dictatorship in
Europe.” This unholy alliance has brutalized and impoverished the
people of Belarus and is distinguished only by the degree of Russian
cynicism which motivated it. Here again, I cannot improve on the
words of Putin-advisor Gleb Pavlovsky:

We are totally satisfied with the level of our relations with
Belarus. Russia will clearly distinguish between certain
characteristics of a political regime in a neighboring country and
its observance of allied commitments. Belarus is a model ally.

Think about this for a moment. The last dictatorship in Europe is the
closest ally of the Putin Government. If this fact were not a
tragedy, it would be laughable.

III

Given the reversal of democratic trends in Moscow and the appearance
of a threatening Russia in Eurasian politics, what are the
implications for US foreign policy? It seems to me that we are forced
to six conclusions:

(1) Russia will actively contest the growth of democratic governments
along its Western border with Europe, throughout the Black Sea and
Caucasus region, and in Central Asia. President Putin intends to
block the resolution of the frozen conflicts from Transdnistria to
South Ossetia to Nagorno-Karabakh and to maintain the Soviet-era
military bases which serve as occupying forces and prolong these
conflicts. The instability this policy will cause in the governments
throughout the post-Soviet space will be a long-term threat to the
interests of Europe and the United States in stabilizing and
democratizing this region.

(2) Russia will obstruct the development of effective multi-lateral
institutions and their operations, such as the OSCE and NATO
Partnership for Peace, anywhere in what Putin perceives as Russia’s
historical sphere of influence, thereby isolating Russia’s neighbors
from the structures of international dialogue, conflict resolution,
and cooperation.

(3) Russia will increasingly engage in paramilitary and criminal
activities beyond its borders, both as an instrument of state policy
and as a function of simple greed. Thus, the United States should
expect the persistence of arms traffic to embargoed states and the
irresponsible proliferation of small arms (as in South Ossetia) as
well as a higher incidence of both politically and criminally
motivated bombings and murders (as in the recent car bombing in Gori,
Georgia and the repeated attempts on Victor Yushchenko’s life.)

(4) President Putin’s goal of a 21st century empire will cause him to
seize, extort or otherwise secure the oil and gas reserves of the
Caspian and Central Asia as a source of funds for state power.
Indeed, the seizure of Yukos and the network of pipelines were the
first two steps in a larger plan to control the resources of Central
Asia. Setting aside the negative impact these developments will have
on world energy prices, our allies in Europe will become increasingly
dependent on an oil monopoly controlled by the Russian security
services for its growing energy needs. Without doubt, this oil and
gas will come with a political price.

(5) The policies of Russia and the conduct of President Putin are
growing increasingly eccentric and seem to be motivated more by an
angry romanticism, than by a rational calculation of national
interest. Putin’s insistence in an interview with Russia journalists
at the time that there were no casualties in the slaughter in the
Nord-Ost Theater is revealing. Putin was only conscious of casualties
among the Russian security services; the lives of civilians did not
figure in his calculus. As everyone knows, the unpredictable and
uncalculated use of power in international politics is highly
dangerous. In a word, we are not dealing with a benevolent autocracy;
we are now dealing with a violent and vulgar “thuggery.”

(6) And, finally, President Putin’s plan cannot possibly work. Both
strategically and economically, Russia cannot support itself as a
world power and cannot feed its people with an economy run by the
Kremlin. Thus, if these trends are not reversed, Putin will bring
about the second collapse of Moscow which may well be far more
dangerous and violent than the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989.
It was precisely this outcome, the return to empire and the resultant
collapse, that US policy has been trying to avert since the fall of
the Berlin Wall. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news – web
sites) advised presciently some years ago, a critical challenge for
US policy will be “to manage the decline of Soviet power.” So far, we
are not meeting this challenge.

It seems to me that there are four policy steps that the United
States should take in response to the threat posed by an
anti-democratic Russia. First, we have to end the exemption from
public criticism that President Putin’s administration seems to
enjoy. If Saudi Arabia and Egypt are no longer immune from legitimate
criticism of their undemocratic practices, so too must Russian
practices be subject to public censure by US policymakers.

Second, the United States must end the policy of advancing access to
the inner councils of democratic institutions (the G-7, NATO, and the
White House) as long as Putin continues to abuse human and political
rights at home and attempts to undermine democratic institutions
abroad. If the conduct of Putin is free from penalty, he will
undoubtedly continue to pursue policies counter to the interests of
the community of democracies.

Third, the United States should work with our partners in NATO and
the European Union to develop common strategies to deal with the
death of democracy inside Russia and with its imperial interventions
abroad. The recent enlargements of the EU and NATO added many
European countries with first-hand knowledge of what it means to be
an object of Russia’s predatory policies. For Czechs, Slovaks, Poles,
Balts and others, Russian imperialism is not an abstraction. We can
and must expend the political capital to develop a common Western
approach that promotes democracy inside and alongside the Russian
Federation.

Finally, Natan Sharansky reminds us that “moral clarity” is the
essential quality of a successful democracy in its foreign policy. As
a nation, we have been far from morally clear about the political
prisoners in Russia and the human rights abuses throughout the North
Caucasus, to name two of the most egregious examples.

Closely related to the lack of moral clarity is the absence of
“strategic clarity.” We simply have not informed Russia where the
“red lines” are in their treatment of vulnerable new democracies and
what the consequences are for Russia in pushing beyond what used to
be called “the rules of the game.”

A stern and public rebuke to Putin may cause Russia to rethink the
self-destructive path on which it has embarked and serve to protect
the long-term democratic prospects and future prosperity of Russia
and its neighbors. It would also send a message of hope to embattled
democrats inside Russia and the beleaguered democracies on its
borders. Let us hope that President Bush (news – web sites) delivers
this message to Putin next week in Bratislava.

Bruce P. Jackson is president of the Project on Transitional
Democracies.