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.

ping

That would be my view of Vladimir Putin's Russia too. Good one!

A row between Russia and America over Moscow's response to the Beslan tragedy escalated yesterday when George Bush voiced concern that a sweeping Kremlin security overhaul "could undermine democracy".
Hours after Russia warned Washington not to meddle in its internal affairs, Mr Bush expressed disquiet at moves by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to fight Chechen terrorism by amassing more power for himself.
"As governments fight the enemies of democracy, they must uphold the principles of democracy," the president said. "I'm ... concerned about the decisions that are being made in Russia that could undermine democracy."
His remarks hinted at US unease that Mr Putin could use the "war on terror" to roll back post-Soviet reform.

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.

Pravda</>

Putin launches unconstitutional coup d'etat

09/14/2004 19:17

While using the war on terrorism as a mere excuse, Russian president Vladimir Putin has decided to strengthen his personal powers.

President's newly-developed plan entails that governors should no longer be elected by those people who live in the regions, but by delegates instead. President himself will provide the candidates. Political analysts are skeptical as to the fact that such drastic measures will aid to combat terrorism; they also doubt that such measures have in fact been conducted in accordance with the Constitution.

The other day, during a government"s meeting Vladimir Putin has made the following statement: "To ensure unity of the governmental authorities and a step-by-step development of federalism it is important that the Federation and its units will act together in the formation of executive governmental bodies on the territory of the Russian Federation. In this regard, I assume that high-ranking officials of the units of the Russian Federation will ought to be elected by Legislative Assemblies of those territories."

Some critics have already announced last night that those amendments to the system proposed by the president regarding regional elections appear to be contradictory to the Russian Constitution. Independent delegate of the State Duma Vladimir Ryzhkov states that Putin"s initiative deviates from the resolution passed by the Constitutional Court on 18 January 1996 according to which election of a high-rank official of any unit of the Federation by delegates of a regional parliament contradicts the Constitution. Back then, the court constituted that head of a region had to acquire his mandate from residents.

Georgy Satarov, head of the INDEM Fund states: "Thing is, Putin"s proposition concerns not only his personal relationships with the governors. There exists another, perhaps quite meaningless for Mr. Putin, but surely important detail as the Russian citizens. 55th clause of the Constitution clearly states no law significantly diminishing citizens" rights can be adopted in Russia. It appears obvious first of all that Putin simply robs Russian people of their right to vote. Second of all, there is a fundamental 3rd clause of the Russian Constitution that reads that all authority in the country belongs to the Russian people: they exercise it through delegates or by means of a referendum. It used to be that people had exercised their power through their representatives i.e. governors. But it appears that the president intends to remove them and suggest that those governors and heads of the republics became representatives of the president himself, not the people. Finally, Constitution also mentions that Russia is a federative state. Putin and the governors possess different mandates; Putin has a federal mandate, whereas the governors possess a mandate to manage Federal units. And this is where the mix up occurs, which inevitably leads to the destruction of federalism.

This is a drastic change of the country"s political system in general which will quite obviously result in rather unexpected consequences. This is in fact an unconstitutional upheaval if you want."

A source from the president"s administration presumes that the new election system will take effect only after terms of acting governors expires.
According to another source, the new system poses certain risks for Federal government and for the president. "Whereas today governors are held responsible for the situation in the regions, afterward, all those problems will strike the president directly," states the source. "As far as politics go, this move may have negative consequences for Federal government and the president in the long run."

True.

The intelligentsiya is never happy, no matter who's in charge. Not surprized to hear Kasparov isn't excited about Putin.

[Putin] does not want Russia to become an Islamic state.

Powell should be satisfied with Kosovo being taken over by Muslims. But if he wants to prove that he is impartial and honest he should stop pogroms of Christians in this province. After all Kosovo is under his control - there are thousands of well armed American troops.

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.

Putin has fashioned the sort of system the Russian people want.

Now why does this sound so familiar? Oh, yes...

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

Hitler has fashioned the sort of system the German people want.

Let everyone be mindful. We may have a common enemy, but not yet a common purpose.

I am as pro-democracy as anyone, if not more so. But Russia's "democracy" during the Yeltsin era was infected by Soros and the economic "reforms" that he and Jeffrey Sachs instituted. These left the country prone to criminal "oligarch" looters, and lowered the standard of living and life expectancy of most Russians to worse than they were under communism. Sachs admitted that what he did was a mistake, but of course Soros did not! Now Soros is trying to take power in our country by buying the Democratic Party.

Starting from such a low level, Russia may need to follow the model of such countries as South Korea and Taiwan, which had authoritarian governments, but built up their economies. When the middle class was strong enough, they established democracies. A strong middle class is the only proven basis for stable democracy!

Russia today is NOT Soviet communist, but mainly Orthodox Christian!! And as with our country, it needs to fight islamoNazi terorists, in the form of the Chechen bandits allied with Al Qaeda and the other international jihadists. Russia represents one of the great cultures of the world. We need to work together!!

I don’t know why you are talking about Orthodox religion over and over, it is not the theme. Beside of that Orthodox and Catholicism it is exactly the same religion with the same God, few different customs (only thanks to policy! cause bishops of Constantinople and Rome didn’t liked themselves few centuries ago) don’t change that fact. I repeat THE SAME GOD! Rest doesn’t matter!