"Business is politics in up-to-date Russia. The government controls all aspects of the nation's life and the commercial field is not an exception," the chairman of the committee "2008: Free Choice", Grand Master Garry Kasparov said on September 13th at the Baltic Forum of Development in Hamburg. Below you can find excerpts from the chess player's speech.

"We must draw a distinction between the current Russian leadership and the citizens of Russia. The rich culture, creativity, the knowledge and humanity of our nation is still alive and means a lot more to the world than the whole Russian oil," Kasparov said. "High oil prices make the only support for Putin's regime. Citizens of other oil-extracting countries do not derive profit from the oil wealth. Both oil and all other natural resources of Russia should have their own markets and open ways to reach those markets."

Garry Kasparov believes that Russia should unite with Europe. "This union would be important to the Russian nation for social and economic reasons. The traditions of the European democracy and the relative economic stability will help Russia become a modern state. However, Putin's regime mixes up the past and the present. A lot of Russia's neighbors are still being suspicious about Russia, and they have reasons for it. An order in the past is necessary for the future progress. The European and Russian governments are living in two different worlds," Kasparov stated in Hamburg.

"One of the examples to prove it is the fact how our media outlets defend the notorious pact of 1939 between Nazis and Soviets. The USSR attacked Finland because of the pact, it invaded the Baltic republics, occupied a part of Poland and assisted in unleashing WWII. Russia needs to acknowledge the crimes of its Soviet predecessors.

"The avowal of guilt is a good spiritual remedy, which also means the acknowledgement of universal moral values, which the Kremlin currently rejects. One of these values is the ability to find common language. Putin's administration does not know how to speak this language.

"The Soviet past still dominates the Russian reality and politics. Putin is aware of that. In his address to the nation after the hostage crisis in Beslan, the president said that the nation is living under the conditions, which have been created with the collapse of a great state, which proved to be helpless in the changing world. It would be the same to say that you have been living in a house without the water supply system," Kasparov said.

"The Soviet Union could not and cannot be a part of modern Europe. It could become a part of Europe only with its conquests. We must distinguish between modern Russia that we need and the Soviet past that Putin is trying to retrieve.

"There is no place for Committee 2008 and the real opposition in the Russian press. However, there is a place for nationalists and Stalinists, who grieve about that "great state." They decline basic democratic values. These talks about the return to the erstwhile glory are becoming more frequent now. The Nazi propaganda is prohibited in Germany, but not in Russia," Kasparov said.

"Unfortunately, this is not the only aspect, in which Putin exercises himself as a Stalinist. He talks about everything in the old Soviet language. He suppresses freedom of speech, freedom of commerce, he has led Russia astray.

"Putin announced that he would cancel elections of regional governors as a measure to struggle against terrorism. Local parliamentarians will have to approve the selected nominees. Putin is destroying democracy at the time when we need it most. Western politicians might say that the Russian Constitution technically allows it. However, if the West keeps silent, we will most likely witness similar changes happening in the presidential election procedure.

"Even the national lucrative oil market does not function according to the standards of the civilized world. The scandal with Yukos and its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has exerted a destructive influence on the economy.

"It is impossible for Europe to deal with the current Russian administration. Europe should press on Putin for changes. One should not let Putin mix the Soviet past with the Russian future in an attempt to keep the relations.

"Schroeder and Chirac are using double standards instead, which brings a lot of harm to the Russian nation. It is not time for Realpolitik. Each meeting of the Group of Seven with Putin's participation is perceived as the approval of Putin's home policy.

for all those who still see boogie men under the bed and can't rid themselves of cold war paranoia

"A promising post-Soviet Russia
By Paul M. Weyrich
web posted February 23, 2004

For a decade my colleagues at the Free Congress Foundation and I taught Russians about how to win elections and how to build a civil society. At the end of my final lecture I would always say, "We are not here to tell you what to do. We are here to tell you what we did that worked. But whether or not it will work for you is for you to determine. Ultimately you have to fashion a system which will work for you."

At these same training schools I was constantly asked about the Chilean model. Russians, despite their repression by a brutal Communist regime, were far better informed about politics than most Americans. They were fascinated by anti-Communist General Augusto Pinochet, who led Chile with an iron hand while permitting the free market system to flourish there. Again and again I was asked if Russia didn't need what citizens there called "an iron fist".

Vladimir Putin

Well that is what Russia has right now. President Putin is about to be re-elected to another term. He has eliminated much of his political opposition. He has taken control of the television networks. He has cracked down on business corruption. He now has, in effect, a rubber stamp parliament known as the State Duma. But the free market in Russia is flourishing. The economy is growing significantly. Foreign investment has begun to flow into Russia. Real income of most ordinary folks is increasing.

While Putin is no absolute dictator as Pinochet was in his first years in office, he is the "iron fist" most Russians were looking for. Boris Yeltsin ruled over a Russia that had more freedom than it has now, but it was chaotic. Russians do not want chaos. Depending on which survey you believe in, Putin enjoys the support of anywhere from 70 to 85 per cent of the Russian population. His closest opponent in the upcoming election registers from 2 to 5 per cent.

Putin has fashioned the sort of system the Russian people want. Not everyone is happy. Chess Champion Gary Kasparov has founded a new political party with the objective of taking on Putin four years from now. By then, Kasparov figures the bloom will be off the rose. He complains that Putin has established a semi-dictatorship. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell recently upbraided Putin for his seeming lack of concern for political and human rights.

Former Army officer Ralph Peters, who specialized in Russian studies, writing in the New York Post compared Putin to Peter the Great. He was a Russian leader who shook things up while at the same time bringing stability and prosperity to this great land.

We should be concerned about what happens to Russia. But as Ed Lozansky, the President of the American University in Moscow, wrote in an open letter to President Bush in response to remarks made by Colin Powell, "Is it good policy and, moreover, is it in the United States interest to give a public dressing down to a nation which achieved tremendous and impressive positive results during this extremely short transitional period from one of the world's most repressive regimes to freedom?"

Lozansky suggested that it was unfair to criticize Russia for not achieving in a dozen years what it took Europe to accomplish in two hundred years. He opined that it would have been better for Powell to express his views privately. While Powell has suggested that freedom of the press has been diminished with Putin, Powell's comments were printed in Izvestia, the leading political newspaper in Russia.

Peters and Lozansky have a point.

Russia is finding its way. Had the chaos Yeltsin fostered continued, Russians might well have elected to really take a step backwards. Right now, under Putin, Russia is still moving forward albeit not necessarily in exactly the way we would like.

The important issue is this: We need Russia as an ally. If we are serious about the war on terror, then Russia is indispensable because she has a great understanding of what my colleague, Bill Lind, calls "Fourth Generation" warfare. That is the kind of warfare we are experiencing in the Middle East and in Iraq with the demise of the state's monopoly on war.

Putin has made it clear that he is an Orthodox Christian. He wants to see a revival of Christianity in Russia. The reason is Islam. He does not want Russia to become an Islamic state. America has a great interest in the revival of Christianity in Russia.

We should be concerned about some worrisome things Russian officials have said about what they call the "near abroad", which includes the Baltic States, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine - all of which are also needed in the effort to blunt the advance of Islam.

The way to insure that these newly independent nations are not threatened is to invite Russia into NATO. We have advocated that before. We call for that again.

Russia is indeed finding its own way. But new churches continue to open and that is encouraging. Thousands of churches have been restored in recent years. People are free to leave the country. They are free to travel internally. They are free to work in whatever endeavor they wish. They do have a lively free press and even on Putin-controlled television comics joke about their President in Jay Leno fashion.

Under the Communists, if you went to one of the very few churches that were open, you would end your career. You had to have permission to travel more than 50 km from home. Only hard core Communists were permitted to travel abroad. If you joined the Communist party, you usually did reasonably well, but if you did not, you had little choice about what you did or where you did it. And jokes about Andropov on television? Forget about it! The comic would not live to repeat it. Finally, only elite members of the Communist party had decent goods available to them. Ordinary Russians had to stand in line for hours just to get supplies for basic needs. Now there are no shortages. No lines. True, things are expensive. But ordinary Russians can buy almost anything they want, and basic goods are abundant.

Russia has continued to move ahead. Their system may not end up looking the way we would prefer, but if we can count on Russia as an ally, why should we fret? We have had far worse allies when we were fighting the Soviets. Yes, let's keep the pressure on. Let's do it privately. And let's figure out how we can work more closely with Russia against the greatest threat of all: militant, radical Islam, which considers all of us, including Putin, infidels. We had better take that threat seriously.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin Speak out Against Putin’s Reforms

Created: 16.09.2004 23:59 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 00:10 MSK, 1 hour 48 minutes ago

MosNews

Soviet Union’s last president Mikhail Gorbachev and Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin expressed criticism regarding Vladimir Putin’s proposed reforms in Russian electoral system. Statements by Yeltsin and Gorbachev were made in exclusive interviews to Moskovskie Novosti (The Moscow News) weekly, and will be published in that newspaper’s Friday issue. MosNews, which is a partner publication of Moskovskie Novosti, posted full translation of both statements on our website on Thursday.

Our common goal is to do everything possible to make sure that bills, which, in essence, mean a step back from democracy, don’t come into force as law. I hope that the politicians, voters, and the president himself keep the democratic freedoms that were so hard to obtain, — reads Mikhail Gorbachev’s statement. Soviet Union’s last president, who ruled the country from 1985 to 1992, is convinced that Russian authorities “must search for political solutions, negotiate with the middle-of-the-road militants, separating them from the unappeasable extremists”.

His successor Boris Yeltsin, whose second presidential term ended on December 31, 1999, with a surprise announcement of his voluntary resignation (Vladimir Putin was named acting president three months before actually getting elected in March 2000), calls on the Kremlin to refrain from undermining the existing constitutional framework, despite the necessity of fighting terrorist threats.

I firmly believe that the measures that the country’s leadership will undertake after Beslan will remain within the framework of democratic freedoms that have become Russia’s most valuable achievement over the past decade. We will not give up on the letter of the law, and most importantly, the spirit of the Constitution our country had voted for at the public referendum in 1993. If only because the stifling of freedom and the curtailing of democratic rights is a victory by the terrorists. Only a democratic country can successfully resist terrorism and count on standing shoulder to shoulder with all of the world’s civilized countries, — Yeltsin says in his statement.

Boris Yeltsin’s statement is viewed as a surprise move by many observers in Moscow. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, who is still active on Russian political scene, Yeltsin chose to refrain from public comments about Vladimir Putin’s politics ever since his retirement. Recently Boris Berezovsky, an exiled tycoon, renowned for his criticisms of Kremlin and Putin, published an open letter to Russia’s first president, urging Yeltsin to speak up and reminding him of his responsibility for the establishment of Russian constitutional democracy. Yeltsin makes no mention of Berezovsky’s call in his statement, but some observers tend to link his decision to break silence with the exiled oligarch’s request.

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