RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
_________________________________________ ____________________
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 4, No. 35, 10 September 2004
A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics
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HEADLINES:
* ORGANIZING SPONTANEITY
* THE KREMLIN’S REACTION: STAY THE COURSE
* THE KREMLIN AFTER BESLAN
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KREMLIN/WHITE HOUSE
ORGANIZING SPONTANEITY
By Julie A. Corwin
If the “Kursk” submarine disaster of August 2000 caused a
short-term dip in President Vladimir Putin’s popularity, it’s
not difficult to imagine that the trio of terrorists acts in the past
three weeks might also erode — if only temporarily — the 70
percent-plus approval ratings of Russia’s commander in chief.
After all, Putin came to power promising to “rub out” Chechen
terrorists in the outhouse. Now, he — rather than they — appears to
be on the run.
Although Putin’s popularity may suffer, it’s not
clear that any other politician or party will benefit. The response
to the events from Russia’s weakened political parties has
largely been confined to the issuing of public statements. It was the
Kremlin and regional authorities, after all, and not the political
opposition, who organized the nationwide “protest” against terrorism
held on 7 September. Writing in “Izvestiya” the same day, commentator
Aleksandr Arkhangelskii noted that while formally the trade unions
organized the gathering of more than 100,000 people in central Moscow
to express support of the people of Beslan, it was “understood” that
they were simply stand-ins for the authorities.
Similarly in other cities, regional youth organizations were
nominally listed as the organizers for protests, when in fact it was
regional officials who were arranging the events, frequently by
resorting to “traditional organizational methods,” “Nezavisimaya
gazeta” reported on 8 September. And, if “Vedomosti’s” reporting
on 8 September is correct, deputy presidential-administration head
Vladislav Surkov deserves the real credit, since he reportedly
orchestrated the series of antiterrorist rallies on the
president’s orders. Surkov is widely credited for overseeing
Unified Russia’s victory in the December 2003 State Duma
election.
Writing in “Izvestiya,” Arkhangelskii asked, “Why does our
opposition prefer to tearfully complain about the Kremlin, but does
not summon the people even when they would follow?” He continued,
“Yes, the authorities would not allow meetings with antigovernment
slogans…[but] what if [we] were simply silent, standing shoulder to
shoulder, elbow to elbow, demonstrating to ourselves and to our hated
enemy and that [we] are not afraid? And, afterwards having revived
their trust and rallied potential voters, the opposition could
organize an antigovernment meeting under less dramatic
circumstances.”
Arkhangelskii answers his own question by pointing to the
personal shortcomings of individual liberal politicians. While those
may be contributing factors, another possibility is that the law on
public demonstrations and street rallies is already having its
intended effect. According to the new law, relevant authorities must
be notified no more than 15 days and no less than 10 days before an
event, which means that the organizers of the 7 September rally
against terrorism should have applied for permission sometime between
22 and 27 August — before the seizure of the school in Beslan even
began, “Kommersant-Daily” noted on 8 September. However,
mayoral-administration officials denied that any regulations had been
violated in order for the event to be held, and Moscow trade-union
leader Mikhail Nagaitsev told the daily that the meeting was
originally going to be held just to commemorate the 25 August
collision of the two airplanes that resulted in 90 deaths. However,
the Club for Heroes of the Soviet Union, which was another one of the
formal organizers of the event, told the daily that it learned of the
meeting only on 6 September.
The political opposition not only lacks the assurance that
legal officials will look the other way when it comes to completing
the necessary paperwork on time to hold a demonstration, they also
lack the “administrative resources” necessary to ensure a good
turnout. According to gazeta.ru on 7 September, railway workers,
medical-establishment employees, and students at higher educational
institutions were all “tasked” with attending the 7 September protest
against terror. According to “Kommersant-Daily” on 8 September, the
police helpfully rearranged protesters so that persons bearing the
same signs wouldn’t be standing next to one another.
The irony is that all the arm-twisting and heavy-handed
organizing may not have been completely necessary. “Vedomosti”
reported that some people came to the rally in Moscow simply because
they couldn’t stay home and watch TV. And “Nezavisimaya gazeta”
noted that many residents of St. Petersburg of their own accord
burned candles in their windows in memory of the victims of Beslan.
At the demonstration, everyone cried, even men, especially when two
large screens showed fresh news from Beslan.
Pollsters will soon measure how and whether Putin’s
popularity has been affected by Beslan. A longer-lasting effect of
the recent wave of terrorism than a movement up or down in
Putin’s approval rating may be a further expansion of the state
on the pretext of preventing new terrorist acts. Sverdlovsk Governor
Eduard Rossel, a recent convert to the cause of the Unified Russia
party, suggested at a press conference in Yekaterinburg on 6
September that like Americans, Russians are ready to give up part of
their rights for greater safety, “Novyi region” reported on 6
September. Rossel said: “We are ready to limit our rights in the name
of the security of our children. Today we say: less political
intrigues, more security. Society is ready to grant the president
additional powers in the struggle against terrorism.” And with
additional powers and an even stronger state, President Putin may
find public opinion less and less relevant.
WAR ON TERROR
THE KREMLIN’S REACTION: STAY THE COURSE
By Robert Coalson
Nearly a week after the horrifying denouement of the hostage
crisis at a school in North Ossetia, the Russian government seems to
have formulated its response, a reaction that is characterized by
bolstering the mechanisms the administration of President Vladimir
Putin has installed over the last five years, rather than by any
perceptible change of course. Putin and other officials have,
predictably, ruled out any softening of the government’s policies
in Chechnya, going so far as to deny that there is any connection
between the situation in the breakaway republic and the Beslan
hostage crisis. “Just imagine that people who shoot children in the
back came to power anywhere on our planet,” Putin told Western
journalists and experts during a Kremlin meeting on 7 September,
Russian media reported. “Just ask yourself that and you will have no
more questions about our policy in Chechnya.”
He pledged that the Kremlin will proceed with its policy of
installing a new administration in Chechnya. “We will strengthen law
enforcement by staffing the police with Chechens and gradually
withdraw our troops to barracks, and leave as small a contingent
there as we feel necessary, just like the United States does in
California and Texas,” Putin said. On 9 September, the government
announced a $10 million reward for Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov
and for radical field commander Shamil Basaev, formally assigning the
two men equal culpability for the Beslan events and seeming to
destroy any remaining hope that the government might choose to
consider Maskhadov an acceptable partner in the search for a
political solution in the republic.
Having ruled out a change of course in this area, the Putin
administration has focused on containing the public and political
reaction to the events, which have been widely viewed as a failure of
the administration in the very area — security — that it came to
power promising to prioritize. The administration cannot help but be
stung by comparisons between the latest series of terrorist attacks
— in which well over 400 people have been killed, including the 90
who died when two civilian airliners were blown up on 24 August —
with the fall of 1999, when more than 200 people were killed in a
series of apartment-building bombings in several Russian cities and
Chechen militants launched a major incursion into neighboring
Daghestan. Putin was elected in large part because of his tough talk
in response to those events and widespread public insecurity.
Now, of course, the administration is doing everything it can
to make the claim that the latest incidents are not a continuation of
this violence, but the launching of a new war against Russia by
unspecified outside forces that are backed by other unspecified
outside forces. The administration so far has been more proactive in
responding to the potential for a political crisis created by the
Beslan events than in responding to that attack itself.
Measures have been taken to keep the public focused on the
tragedy of the events and on the need for ever greater unity, themes
that Putin stressed during his 4 September speech to the country.
“This is not a challenge to the president, parliament, or
government,” Putin said. “It is a challenge to all of Russia, to our
entire people.” He called on people to show their “responsibility as
citizens” and said Russia is stronger than the terrorists because of
“our sense of solidarity.” The wave of government-orchestrated public
demonstrations against terrorism in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other
cities was the most visible of these efforts, with the administration
marshalling its control of national television and of the
quasi-independent Federation of Trade Unions to bring out good
crowds. Only a few voices, such as that of Free Russia leader Irina
Khakamada, could be heard pointing out that a spontaneous
demonstration would have been more satisfying.
On the political level, the Kremlin-linked leftist
“opposition” party Motherland has called for the resignation of the
government in response to Beslan, a move that takes some of the
pressure off of Putin. If truly independent forces in the Duma such
as the Communist Party insist on forcing a discussion of the
terrorist attacks, Motherland and Unified Russia will easily be able
to make sure the spotlight remains on the cabinet and not on the
administration. Although such a turn of events is highly unlikely,
even the resignations of some cabinet members would not be perceived
as a personal defeat for Putin, since the current government has been
widely billed as a “technical government” intended to implement and
take the heat for painful reforms such as the recently adopted
social-benefits bill.
Perhaps the most telling example of how the government used
the tools at its disposal to protect itself is how deftly the
security forces were apparently able to deal with journalistic
threats to the regime, as opposed to their less-stellar protection of
civilians from terrorists. “Novaya gazeta” reporter Anna
Politkovskaya and RFE/RL correspondent Andrei Babitskii, both of whom
have long been considered by the Kremlin to be sympathetic to the
Chechen cause, were both intercepted well before they got anywhere
near Beslan and entirely prevented from reporting on the crisis.
Babitskii was arrested on trumped-up charges in a Moscow airport,
while Politkovskaya was apparently poisoned on a flight to
Rostov-na-Donu, spending the rest of the crisis in a local hospital.
In these cases, the security organs, the police, and the courts seem
to have worked in close coordination to prevent any damage to the
Kremlin’s image or version of reality.
The Kremlin’s response to Beslan is predictable, given
the instruments of management that it has strengthened and cultivated
over the past five years. Other instruments — independent political
parties, judiciary, mass media, and public organizations — might
have produced a significant change in political course, or perhaps
even a significant crisis of stability. Instead, the
administration’s control of the security organs, law enforcement,
the mass media, public debate, and the political process predetermine
that its focus will be on managing the perception of the crisis first
of all. And the more the foundations of that system are shaken by the
events, the more the administration will bolster its control over
those instruments, ensuring a policy that amounts to nothing more
than “more of the same.”
Of course, the security situation in Chechnya and the North
Caucasus in general will have to be addressed. But that response will
not take into consideration calls for a real political process there
to replace the sham of stage-managed referendums and elections and
the facade of local administrations that is fully controlled by the
Kremlin. It will not take into consideration calls for an end to
human rights violations by federal forces in Chechnya: when asked
about this during his 7 September meeting with Western journalists,
Putin compared them to the events at Iraq’s Abu Ghurayb prison,
saying, “In war there are ugly processes that have their own logic.”
It will not take into consideration the widely perceived need to root
out the corruption that has almost certainly played a role in every
major terrorist incident Russia has faced in recent years.
Instead, the Kremlin will most likely rely on its control of
society, of information, and of the political process to cover up an
intensification of the military policies it has pursued in Chechnya
for most of the post-Soviet period. The information blockade of the
republic will be redoubled and the seemingly endless “antiterrorism
operation” there will continue. But these policies are not without
their risks. “There is fear if no one knows the truth,” Khakamada
told “The Moscow Times” on 8 September. “If people don’t
understand, it makes it easier for terrorists to buy people off. If
we are slaves, it is easier for them to recruit. The more things are
pushed underground, the better it is for the terrorists.”
THE KREMLIN AFTER BESLAN
By Victor Yasmann
President Vladimir Putin on 4 September appeared in a
nationally televised address in the wake of the bloodiest terrorism
incident in modern Russian history. He linked the takeover of a
school in Beslan and the deaths of hundreds of schoolchildren,
parents, and teachers to a series of other terrorist incidents that
have rocked the country since 24 August, including the 24 August
downing of two jet airliners and the 31 August suicide bombing
outside a Moscow subway station. In all, more than 400 people were
killed in less than 10 days.
“What we are dealing with are not isolated acts intended to
frighten us, not isolated terrorist attacks,” Putin said, according
to the text posted on the presidential website
(). “What we are facing is the direct
intervention of international terrorism directed against Russia.” He
added that the entire country is now engaged in “a total, cruel, and
full-scale war.”
Putin admitted that the country has been victimized by
terrorism because of its weakness. “We showed ourselves to be weak,”
he said. “And the weak get beaten.” He went on to say that this
weakness was a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union — an event
about which Putin expressed some regret — as well as Russia’s
inadequate defenses and pervasive corruption in the justice and
law-enforcement systems.
Putin also made several far-reaching statements that seem to
be a notable departure from his general policy of deferring to the
West and speaking of the need for cooperation with the United States
in combating international terrorism. For the first time in several
years, Putin said that Russia faces threats “both from the east and
the west.” Without specifically mentioning Chechnya or his own
policies in the Caucasus, Putin seemed to place the blame for the
increased terrorist activity in Russia on unspecified outside forces
that are threatened by Russia’s nuclear-power status. “Some would
like to tear from us a juicy chunk,” Putin said. “Others help them.
They help, reasoning that Russia still remains one of the world’s
major nuclear powers, and as such still represents a threat to them.
And so they reason that this threat should be removed. Terrorism, of
course, is just an instrument to achieve these aims.” Because
Russia’s nuclear arsenal is targeted primarily at the United
States, Putin seemed to be referring directly to that country.
However, does this really reflect the way Putin thinks? As a
former intelligence officer and a well-informed political leader, he
knows that the West has little reason to worry that Russia’s
nuclear weapons would be used in the current international
environment. The West is concerned, of course, that Russia’s
nuclear arsenal could be a tempting target for international
terrorists who are actively striving to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. These concerns are increased by the weak and corrupt
law-enforcement system that Putin describes.
It would seem, then, that Putin’s statements about
external forces working against Russia through terrorists were
addressed to his domestic audience, in an effort to avoid political
responsibility for the failure of his policies in Chechnya and the
Caucasus. He also undoubtedly wishes to avoid forcing his beloved
state-security organs to be accountable for this stark failure to
protect Russian citizens. The externalization of culpability is often
a defense of those in weak positions.
Effective Politics Foundation head and Kremlin insider Gleb
Pavlovskii told RTR on 6 September that during the Beslan siege the
present political system demonstrated its uselessness because no
political parties or politicians raised their voices against “the
lies that overflowed the whole country.”
Another Kremlin insider, National Strategy Institute head
Stanislav Belkovskii, told RFE/RL on 7 September that the Kremlin
administration was seized by panic and dismay during the crisis, as
reflected by numerous conflicting statements from Russian officials
during this time.
The Beslan crisis has highlighted the failure of the
Kremlin’s policies in Chechnya, despite the concerted efforts of
the Kremlin to deflect such considerations. Belkovskii noted that the
Kremlin’s policy in the region relies on pro-Moscow figures like
Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and Chechen leader Alu Alkhanov,
figures who all but disappeared from public view during the crisis.
The country’s political parties — on both ends of the
political spectrum — have only slowly been aroused from their
lethargy and begun to criticize Putin’s claims of external forces
behind the wave of terror. In a statement posted on its website
() on 7 September, the Communist Party said, “The
roots of the tragedy can be found not in ‘international
terrorism,’ which is a convenient smokescreen for the drama, but
inside the country.”
The Communist Party statement called for the resignation of
the entire Russian leadership. “The Putin regime directs all its
efforts toward the struggle with the [political] opposition, the
suppression of the independent mass media, with producing the
‘required results’ in elections, and the construction of a
vertical of power that proved helpless during this crisis,” the
statement said. “Law enforcement has been transformed into an
instrument for carrying out the authorities’ political orders.”
Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii on 7 September also called
for the resignation of the heads of the security organs and for the
creation of an independent commission to investigate the terrorist
attacks, grani.ru reported. The Motherland party similarly called for
the resignation of the government and for disbanding the Duma, which
it dismissed as “a rubber stamp,” the website reported.
Clearly, as the period of mourning recedes, many Russians are
seeing the real face of the country’s leadership in a whole new
light.
POLITICAL CALENDAR
8 September: Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei will visit Russia
10-11 September: President Putin will visit Germany
12 September: Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov will
visit North Korea
13-14 September: Fourth annual meeting of the Russian Jewish Congress
14 September: British Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, will
visit Petrozavodsk
14-17 September: Third annual Baikal Economic Forum will take place
15 September: Summit of CIS presidents will take place in
Astana, Kazakhstan
15 September: Russia will play supervisory role at OPEC
meeting in Vienna
15-18 September: The third International Conference of Mayors
of World Cities will be held in Moscow
15 September: Supreme Court will render a final decision on
when to hold gubernatorial elections in Samara Oblast
20 September: The State Duma’s fall session will begin
20-23 September: South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun to visit
Russia
21 September: U.S. pianist Van Cliburn will perform a concert
in Moscow in memory of the victims of the Beslan tragedy
26 September: State Duma will consider draft 2005 budget in
its first reading
29 September: Auction for the government’s stake in LUKoil will be
held
October: President Putin will visit China
October: International forum of the Organization of the
Islamic Conference will be held in Moscow
1 October: Deadline for population to select a management
company to handle their pension monies, according to
“Kommersant-Daily” on 3 September
1 October: Date by which the government will decide whether
to sell a controlling stake in Aeroflot, according to Economic
Development and Trade Minister German Gref
7 October: President Putin’s birthday
10 October: Mayoral elections scheduled for Magadan
23-26 October: Second anniversary of the Moscow theater
hostage crisis
25 October: First anniversary of former Yukos head Mikhail
Khodorkovskii’s arrest at an airport in Novosibirsk
31 October: Presidential election in Ukraine
November: Gubernatorial election in Pskov and Kurgan oblasts
14 November: Mayoral election will take place in Blagoveshchensk
20 November: Sixth anniversary of the killing of State Duma
Deputy Galina Starovoitova
22 November: President Putin to visit Brazil
December: A draft law on toll roads will be submitted to the
government, according to the Federal Highways Agency’s
Construction Department on 6 April
December: Gubernatorial elections in Vladimir, Bryansk, Kamchatka,
Ulyanovsk, and Volgograd oblasts; Khabarovsk Krai; and
Ust-Ordynskii Autonomous Okrug
December: Presidential elections in Marii-El and Khakasia republics
5 December: By-elections for State Duma seats will be held in
two single-mandate districts in Ulyanovsk and Moscow
5 December: Gubernatorial election will be held in Astrakhan Oblast
29 December: State Duma’s fall session will come to a close
1 February 2005: Former President Boris Yeltsin’s 74th birthday
March 2005: Gubernatorial election in Saratov Oblast.
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Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
The “RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly” is prepared by Julie A. Corwin
on the basis of a variety of sources. It is distributed every
Wednesday.
Direct comments to Julie A. Corwin at [email protected].
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