January 5, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4010 4011 4012

Johnson's Russia List
#4010
5 January 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
Reports from Moscow indicate that Reuters correspondent
Maria Eismont is fine, resting with friends after a very heavy 
December.
1. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: A Worrying Abdication.
2. Los Angeles Times: Richard Paddock, Putin's Rise Chalked Up to Close 'Family' Ties. Russia: Given Moscow's cutthroat politics, it's believed Yeltsin's inner circle retains leverage over new president. 
3. Dan Cisek: Comment on Putin.
4. PBS NewsHour: POWER SHIFT. (Discussion with Michael McFaul, Dimitri Simes, Leon Aron, and Stephen Cohen)
5. Newsweek International: Chubais to Putin: Go after crime and corruption. (Yevgenia Albats interviews Anatoly Chubais)
6. Esther Dyson on Squier/Intriligator discussion of information technology in Russia.
7. New York Daily News: Lars-Erik Nelson, Boris' Legacy: What, We Worry?]

*******

#1
Moscow Times
January 5, 2000 
EDITORIAL: A Worrying Abdication 

A tsar abdicates his throne; but the only thing a democratically elected 
leader can abdicate is his responsibility. This is what Boris Yeltsin has 
done by resigning just a few months before his term would have ended, 
explicitly so as to tilt the ensuing elections to favor Vladimir Putin. 

The tentatively planned March presidential vote is now doomed to be a far 
less significant or inspiring experience than was Mikhail Gorbachev's 
peaceful transfer of all power to Yeltsin in 1991. Everyone talks about the 
Yeltsin years as the reform years. But the fact is, there is not a single 
major reform that was not begun by Gorbachev and at least slightly tarnished 
or rolled back under Yeltsin. And now, with this less-than-heroic departure - 
immunity from prosecution tightly in hand - Yeltsin has sealed it that way. 
Yeltsin's legacy will be like Yeltsin himself, particularly during his second 
term: inarticulate, confused, self-absorbed, weak. 

BUT IS IT DEMOCRATIC? 

Not really. For starters, it is not even a true transfer of power, as was 
Gorbachev's surrender to Yeltsin. Control of the Kremlin is staying within 
the family. 

In Yeltsin's account, he is resigning not for health reasons - which would be 
understandable and forgivable, provided it were also true - but purely to 
give a boost to his chosen successor, Putin. That is a frivolous explanation 
indeed. It amounts to a hijacking of democracy by the Kremlin's inner circle 
of advisers and hangers-on. Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Voloshin come to 
mind here, as does Tatyana Dyachenko. 

Somebody who also comes to mind, albeit in a different way, is the U.S. 
president during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln - who once famously 
warned that it was possible to deceive all of the people some of the time, 
and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the 
time. Lincoln saw this as a strength of democracy. But it is one 
self-evidently contingent upon the people being given time to sort out the 
truth - and that time is what the Kremlin is trying to steal. It is busy 
fooling all of the people with its message that Putin is winning a graceful 
Caucasus campaign, yet it knows this untruth cannot be pushed forever. 

So people will vote for Putin in a few weeks, but their consent will not be 
informed. They hope and believe that he will be a strong leader able to deal 
with corruption and restore order, while at the same protecting their 
personal freedoms. 

Yet their knowledge of Putin is based almost entirely on pro-government 
propaganda about him and about his war - propaganda that leaves out the truth 
of how the war is progressing (bloodily, and badly, by most objective 
accounts), and that rarely asks the obvious questions about Putin's past. Is 
he beholden to the KGB? To the oligarchs? Is he tainted by any of the 
corruption allegations leveled at the St. Petersburg mayor's office, where he 
was the No. 2 official, or at the Kremlin property management office of 
Mabetex fame? Don't expect to find out the truth from the television. 

In fact, already we see a crackdown by the Russian government on access to 
Chechnya by foreign or Russian observers. Surely now all media and all those 
with an interest in truth and democracy, be they Russian or foreign, have a 
responsibility to report thoroughly and factually on the situation in that 
sad patch of the Caucasus. 

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTITUTION 

Yeltsin, Putin and others are stressing the constitutionality of this 
transfer of power. Putin, with his trademark truculence, went so far on New 
Year's Eve as to warn that he would "decisively crush" anyone who did not 
obey the constitution. 

But to say that what is happening is "legal" is to say nothing at all. Just 
about every evil that has befallen the Russian state in the past decade has 
been technically "legal" - from the hijacking of the nation's industrial 
crown jewels, to the parking of the currency reserves in the Jersey Islands, 
to the annexation of the national airwaves by a few unscrupulous Kremlin 
intriguers. Men like Anatoly Chubais have offered lawyerly hair-splitting 
over past mistakes of an "ethical" but not necessarily "legal" nature. 

Yelena Bonner, the human rights activist and wife of the late Andrei 
Sakharov, warns: "[Yeltsin] left Russia with a dangerous constitution that 
was made just for him, and now Putin will exploit it." Bonner, as she so 
often does, has gone straight to the heart of the matter. Russia's 
Constitution - the one Yeltsin rammed through in the post-1993 chaos of a 
parliament in flames - gives the presidency awesome powers. And there have 
been calls across the political spectrum to amend it - to give the Cabinet 
and parliament more independence and power. Such reforms are indeed crucial 
and should be pursued. 

Yet president-in-waiting Putin has made clear he opposes any constitutional 
reform. "We have a very good constitution," Putin wrote in a recent statement 
on his plans for Russia in the new millennium. "The section devoted to rights 
and personal freedoms is considered the best constitutional act of its sort 
in the world." Need we remind our readers that the Khmer Rouge and Stalin 
constitutions have also been praised for their declarations of rights and 
freedoms? 

No, the concentration of so much power in the hands of the Russian executive 
is exactly why the nation has been preoccupied with tracking "the oligarchy" 
or "the family." When supreme power is exercised behind closed doors by a de 
facto monarch, the monarch's advisers are the highest officials in the land - 
and "democracy" drifts towards becoming a Soviet-style exercise in voting for 
a pre-selected victor. In Yeltsin's case, the advisers over the years have 
been an odd collection of old friends (like bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov and 
tennis coach Shamil Tarpishchev), actual family members, government officials 
of proven loyalty and the "cashiers" - businessmen-allies. Commander-in-Chief 
Putin will also have "advisers" - how could he not? - and the only question 
is how many will be drawn from the sitting royal family, how many from the 
"St. Petersburg clan" of "reformers" and how many from the KGB. 

WHO IS PUTIN? 

There is a shocking amount of wishful thinking masquerading as analysis about 
Vladimir Putin. We can only hope that he will indeed fight corruption while 
protecting civil liberties and pursuing an appropriate mix of state-led and 
free-market economic policies. Perhaps all that Russia needs is the youthful 
energy of a firm young president, and another year or two of high oil prices, 
to set things aright. Certainly we at The Moscow Times will be watching 
hopefully and with an open mind. And even if we are disturbed at the 
politics, we will be willing to applaud should the economy pick up and 
ordinary people start living better - after all, that is all we have ever 
advocated. 

Then again, Putin's record so far is dispiriting indeed. He may consider 
self-described liberals such as Chubais and Sergei Kiriyenko his allies - but 
then, so has Berezovsky when it has suited his needs. When Putin took over 
the KGB successor agency, it was involved in an idiotic and internationally 
condemned persecution of environmentalist Alexander Nikitin, and two rival 
FSB factions were accusing each other of running a murder-for-hire bureau 
within the Lubyanka's walls. As far as we know, Putin did nothing about those 
two horrifying scandals. As prime minister, his only claim to fame has been 
to seize upon a truly bad situation in Chechnya as an excuse to wage an 
imperial war, one that punishes civilians in the name of protecting them. 

And now the Kremlin is crowing that Putin will be the only real candidate on 
the ballot, and the elections themselves a mere formality. We are saddened, 
and wary. 

*******

#2
Los Angeles Times
January 4, 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin's Rise Chalked Up to Close 'Family' Ties 
Russia: Given Moscow's cutthroat politics, it's believed Yeltsin's inner 
circle retains leverage over new president. 
By RICHARD C. PADDOCK, Times Staff Writer

MOSCOW--Tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky likes to say that anyone can become 
president of Russia--as long as that person has the backing of the wealthy 
elite and the media. 
The billionaire Kremlin insider is about to prove himself right. 
As in previous palace intrigues, Berezovsky has emerged as a pivotal 
figure in events leading to President Boris N. Yeltsin's resignation Friday 
and the appointment of acting President Vladimir V. Putin, a stern, 
little-known former spy who came to Moscow less than four years ago. 
Berezovsky is a key member of "The Family," the inner circle of Kremlin 
advisors revolving around Yeltsin's younger daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko. With 
Yeltsin ill much of his second term, it's widely believed The Family ruled 
Russia and engineered the rapid rise of Putin, who has been associated in 
recent years with key Family members. 
"Boris Berezovsky said many times--there are many witnesses; I heard it 
myself--that he sincerely believes that in Russia anybody can be elected 
president with adequate financial support and control of TV," said Igor Y. 
Malashenko, a television executive who served as Yeltsin's media advisor in 
the 1996 reelection campaign. "Anybody." 
When Yeltsin abruptly named Putin in August as his sixth prime minister, 
it looked like another bizarre move by the unpredictable, ailing president. 
In fact, it now appears to have been the first step in a shrewd plan to turn 
Putin into Russia's next president. 
With Yeltsin's resignation New Year's Eve, Putin became acting president 
and is in an excellent position to win the job outright in an election 
tentatively set for the end of March. Just 47, he could maintain power for 
years to come, with the ability to bring about great changes in the lives of 
Russians. 
On Monday, Putin signed a decree relieving Dyachenko of her post as 
advisor to the president, suggesting that Putin was distancing himself from 
the Yeltsin era. But few had expected Dyachenko to remain in that capacity 
anyway, and she is likely to play a behind-the-scenes role in a Putin 
administration. 
Some suggest that, in Russia's cutthroat world of politics, The Family 
must have retained some kind of leverage over Putin. 
"The Family that has always feared to let the reins of power go all of a 
sudden entrusts their fate to a man whom they appear not to know at all. 
Isn't that weird?" said Marina Y. Salye, a former Leningrad City Council 
member who headed an investigation into alleged improprieties by Putin a 
decade ago. "It is simply not their style--they have never acted so 
recklessly. So they must know something that . . . allows them to trust Putin 
fully." 
The making of Russia's new leader began when he returned from more than 
a decade as a KGB spy in East Germany and took a post in the city government 
of Leningrad, now once again named St. Petersburg. 
Known for his quiet, low-key style, the former KGB colonel soon rose to 
first deputy mayor under Mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak, who was regarded as a 
leader of Russia's so-called reform movement. Putin's influence behind the 
scenes was so great that he became known as Sobchak's "gray cardinal." 
"He did not like to be conspicuous, but practically nothing at the 
mayor's office was done without Putin's approval," wrote Alexei A. Mukhin in 
"The Federal Elite," a book about Russia's powerful figures. "Sobchak liked 
to joke that he would feel safe taking Putin on a reconnaissance 
mission"--one of the highest compliments one Russian can pay another. 
While some cite Putin's association with Sobchak as evidence that he 
will develop a liberal economic policy, his track record does not necessarily 
support that view. 
In mid-1990, the city commission headed by Salye concluded that Putin 
had improperly issued licenses for the export of raw materials and nonferrous 
materials in exchange for food shipments that never arrived. The commission 
accused Putin of abuse of power and recommended that Sobchak fire him, 
according to Salye and Mukhin. Sobchak took no action. 
Sobchak, who fled the country in the face of unrelated corruption 
charges in 1997, praised Putin's loyalty in a recent TV interview. 
"I saw that his inability to betray, his loyalty, reliability and 
honesty are the main traits of his character, which really make him a rare 
person in our times," said Sobchak, who returned to Russia last summer after 
charges against him were dropped. 

Plum Post at Kremlin 
In 1996, Putin moved to Moscow, where he was in a position to meet close 
associates of Yeltsin, who aided his rise to power. 
The Family's members include Dyachenko and Yeltsin's former chief of 
staff and ghostwriter Valentin B. Yumashev, as well as financiers Berezovsky 
and Roman A. Abramovich. The latter pair are among a handful of Russians who 
became wealthy through Yeltsin's privatization of government assets. 
Dyachenko, the only one with unlimited access to Yeltsin, was widely regarded 
as the power behind the president. 
Some say it was Anatoly B. Chubais, a longtime Yeltsin advisor close to 
The Family, who brought Putin to the Kremlin and arranged a post for him as 
deputy to Pavel P. Borodin, the head of the Kremlin's property department. 
Borodin, who also has strong ties to The Family, oversees the Kremlin's 
huge real estate holdings and has been at the center of a scandal involving 
the Swiss company Mabetex, which won Kremlin construction contracts worth 
$300 million and allegedly gave credit cards to Yeltsin and his two 
daughters. 
Putin has not been tarnished by the Mabetex scandal, but he and Borodin 
were accused by a small St. Petersburg newspaper of illegally selling 
billions of dollars' worth of Russian real estate abroad. The two officials 
sued for libel and won a court order putting the paper out of business, 
Borodin said last year. 
It was in the fall of 1996, soon after Yeltsin won reelection, that the 
paths of Putin and Berezovsky most likely crossed. Both were members of 
Yeltsin's administration. Soon after Putin moved to Moscow, Berezovsky was 
rewarded for his campaign support with a post as the deputy secretary of 
Yeltsin's Security Council. 
Within the Kremlin, Putin's rise was rapid. 
In March 1997, he was appointed head of the Kremlin's Audits 
Directorate, a post likely to have given him great insight into the workings 
of the Kremlin. Yeltsin also named him a deputy chief of staff. 
In 1998, Yeltsin appointed him to head the FSB, the main successor 
agency to the KGB. In an unusual move in March, Yeltsin gave him the 
additional important post of Security Council secretary. 
As Putin moved up, the Kremlin inner circle was holding auditions for a 
presidential successor. A string of prime ministers tried, and failed, to win 
Yeltsin's blessing: Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, Sergei V. Kiriyenko, Yevgeny M. 
Primakov and Sergei V. Stepashin were all fired over a period of 18 months. 
With Yeltsin scheduled to step down in August, the inner circle was 
anxious to pass on power to a successor who would protect its interests. 
When Yeltsin named Putin prime minister in August, it was clear 
something was different: Yeltsin declared Putin his preferred successor, a 
designation no one else had won. 
By then, Russian forces had begun fighting separatist Chechen rebels who 
had invaded the neighboring republic of Dagestan in an attempt to expand 
their territory. 

Chechens Blamed for Bombing Wave 
In September, a wave of bombings destroyed four apartment buildings in 
Moscow and two southern Russian cities, killing 300 people. The government 
was quick to blame the attacks on Chechen terrorists, and the Russian public 
demanded revenge. 
It has been widely speculated that the bombings were carried out by the 
FSB to fuel public hatred of Chechnya and rally support for the war. The 
government bulldozed the bomb sites within days, destroying any remaining 
evidence, and has never proved that the attacks were staged by Chechen 
terrorists. 
In early October, Putin sent troops into the rebel republic and began 
winning back territory surrendered during the first Chechen war of 1994-96. 
His popularity soared, exceeding that of any politician since Yeltsin in the 
early 1990s. 
Berezovsky, meanwhile, began building the Unity bloc, a loose coalition 
of Kremlin allies headed by Emergency Situations Minister Sergei K. Shoigu. 
After Putin endorsed the party, it scored a major upset in Dec. 19 
parliamentary elections, coming from nowhere to finish just behind the 
Communist Party with 23% of the vote. 
Vyacheslav A. Nikonov, who worked for Primakov's rival Fatherland-All 
Russia movement, said Berezovsky was inspired to take a renewed interest in 
Russian politics in October when he was denied a visa to enter Switzerland, 
where his business dealings are under investigation. 
"It used to be, whatever happened in Russia, they could say, 'We have 
our airplane ready, we have our castles, etc.,' " said Nikonov, who worked in 
Yeltsin's 1996 campaign. "Now, the bank accounts may be in trouble; the 
castles as well. They realized it was cheaper to buy new power." 
In a December interview in the weekly Novaya Gazeta, Berezovsky took 
credit for masterminding the naming of Putin as prime minister and designated 
presidential successor. He also took credit for coming up with the idea to 
create the Unity bloc. "I am happy that I persuaded not only my close circle 
but also the society to believe that the new construction was feasible," he 
said. 
In his new role, Putin's first sign of loyalty to The Family was a 
decree he signed Friday granting Yeltsin immunity from prosecution. 
Former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is among those who believe 
Dyachenko pushed aside her father. 
In an interview published Monday in the Italian newspaper La Stampa, 
Gorbachev said he thought that Dyachenko, Berezovsky and presidential chief 
of staff Alexander S. Voloshin actually forced Yeltsin out of office. 
"Yeltsin did not want to resign," Gorbachev said. "He resisted it with 
all his remaining strength. In fact, he was deposed. It was this trio who 
masterminded 'Operation Putin.' There is no change of the regime, there will 
be no fight against corruption. The interests and the privileges of the 
oligarchy will be completely preserved." 
"Very few people in Russia should feel enthusiastic about Putin's 
accession to power," Salye, the former councilwoman, said. "They should worry 
about their own future, not to mention the future of the country. Putin is a 
tough person, and his toughness often borders on cruelty. He is extremely 
secretive. In general, he possesses all the qualities that have made it 
possible for The Family to trust him." 

******

#3
From: Dan Cisek <dancisek@yahoo.com>
Subject: Comment on Putin
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000

Just a thought for all the commentators who agree that Putin is and will 
remain a creature of the Family that brought him to power. Most 
commentators thought the same thing about Adolf Hitler when he first gained 
power electorally in 1933. He was widely agreed to be under the control of 
various right-wing interests who would use to him against the communists 
and then reign him in. As this example demonstrates, even though a figure 
may be brought to power by a particular clique, it is more than possible 
for him to leap-frog over his handlers and became an independent, and even 
dominant, political force. I am not comparing Putin to Hitler in terms of 
substance, but the historical parallel is appropriate. Putin may be the 
Family's man at the moment, but it's quite plausible that he could turn on 
them if it's to his political advantage. As President, and a popular one at 
that, he has the advantage of singular executive power and all the 
prerogatives granted him by the lopsided Constitution.
Putin has already dumped Tatyana Dyachenko from the Kremlin. Might a move 
against Berezovsky be next? Why not? It would be extremely popular, and 
what could Berezovsky possibly do against a determined Putin? For that 
matter, what could any member of the Family do to prevent Putin from 
roasting them alive for public consumption after he wins the presidency in 
March? I think the most telling thing that is being missed or ignored by 
commentators is the fact that only Yeltsin has immunity from prosecution. 
No one else in the Family does. They are only as safe as the powers that be 
decide to make them.
In terms of ways to control Putin, allegations of corruption would surely 
not stick while the war in Chechnya remained popular. It seems to me that 
the moment immediately after the election will be the time of greatest 
danger for the Family. This is purely speculative, of course, but I think 
it's premature to assert that there has been no real change in power in 
Russia. I have a feeling Putin will surprise us all.

******

#4
PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
January 3, 2000
POWER SHIFT 

Russian acting president Vladimir Putin promises to clean up widespread 
corruption. Gwen Ifill leads a discussion of with experts. 

GWEN IFILL: For more on the situation in Russia, we turn to Michael McFaul, 
a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and 
assistant professor of political science at Stanford University. He returned 
from Moscow two weeks ago. Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center for 
Peace and Freedom, and author of After the Collapse: Russia Seeks its Place 
as a Great Power. Leon Aron, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise 
Institute, and author of Yeltsin, a biography that will be published in 
March. And Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at New York 
University, and author of Rethinking the Soviet Experience.

GWEN IFILL: Let's speak first about Vladimir Putin, about whom we know very 
little. Michael McFaul, he is the first Russian president born after World 
War II, in much the same way that Bill Clinton was the first American 
president born after World War II. What does that tell us about him, if 
anything? 

Who is Vladimir Putin? 

MICHAEL McFAUL: I think this tells us a lot. Boris Yeltsin was a transitional 
figure between the Communist system to this new political and economic system 
that we have in Russia today. Putin is not a transitional figure. He made his 
career, most of it, you got to remember most of his career has been in the 
post communist era - and I think says a lot about him. It says that when he 
turns to economic advice, he doesn't turn to Soviet bureaucrats or KGB 
apparatchiks, he turns to market reformers. It says when he looks to the 
outside world, the western world, he is not caught back in superpower Soviet 
American confrontation -- he is a new guy. And I think that's a very positive 
thing for Russia.

GWEN IFILL: Stephen Cohen, Michael McFaul says it's a positive thing for 
Russia, do you agree with that?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I hope Michael is right. What we know for the moment is 
what we know for the moment; that Putin is a career KGB officer and that at 
the moment he waging, he is the architect of a war in Chechnya which all the 
international human rights organizations say commits war crimes every day. 
That is what we know for a fact. All the rest is speculation. 

GWEN IFILL: Dimitri Simes, what does it mean what we say he is a career KGB 
officer, does that mean now what it used to mean? 

DIMITRI SIMES: Yes, it means exactly what it means, because first of all he 
was a career KGB officer, not just in intelligence but also in 
counterintelligence in political -- I do not know what exactly he had done, 
but it was at the end of the Soviet Union -- he was in Germany fighting the 
end of Communism then he went to work for KGB in Russia. When he was the 
director of KGB successor agency, working already for Yeltsin, I have to say 
he behaved very awful. In a typical KGB tradition, he was involved in 
activities which were very questionable morally and I would say legally, and 
he obviously on a number of occasions put interests of his boss, Boris 
Yeltsin, above the Russian institution and above the Russian democracy.

GWEN IFILL: Leon Aron, we just heard Madeleine Albright say that Putin is 
riding the tiger in terms of his war with Chechnya and sailing along on that. 
Is she correct? Is that a dangerous place for him to be?

War and politics 

LEON ARON: There are such things in democracies as popular wars. We all know 
examples - especially they start as popular wars, and then the media turns 
against it and the people turn against it usually when our boys begin to be 
killed in big numbers. Unlike the first war in Chechnya the Russians are 
trying to keep that number low. I think that Putin understands. I think he 
knows very well, for example, Yeltsin won presidency in '96 only in part 
because he finished the first war in Chechnya or at least put a stop to it. 
It was finished a year later. So I think we will see moves by Putin to end 
that war. But he has to be careful because the war, as you have mentioned, is 
very popular. It's considered by the majority of the Russians, 70, 80% as a 
just war as a response to terrorism, as a response to the death of their 
brothers and sisters who were killed -- peaceful citizens. So he cannot just 
say the war is over. He will have to, I think, take Grozny but my feeling is 
that he will open negotiations shortly after that. And I'm almost confident 
that one way or the other, this war will be either over or put in a very, 
very kind of slow basis by the time election comes presidentially at the end 
of March. 

GWEN IFILL: Stephen Cohen, what is the danger of being a single issue 
president? This war is the only thing we know of him practically and what if 
the economy were to take a downturn or if the war were to take a downturn? 

STEPHEN COHEN: I think what we know is the timing of Yeltsin's resignation 
was dictated by the concern that Putin's popularity - and after all Putin has 
been appointed as a kind of Praetorian minister to protect the Kremlin from 
any retribution for what has happened in the country -- that waging war is a 
form of electoral politics could not be sustained for six months, when an 
election was supposed to take place. So by resigning Yeltsin brought the 
election forward three months. It's now 90 days to the election. It's now 
manageable and you mentioned something else. There is disagreement about 
this. And I'm not sure. I mean, I don't have a final opinion on this, but 
there are some people in Russia, serious economists, that think that the 
ruble may collapse within 90 days or certainly within six months, and that 
would reduce the purchasing power of voters, and that would hurt whomever 
sits in the Kremlin.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Putin -- Mr. McFaul, I'm sorry, I've just promoted you. 

MICHAEL McFAUL: I don't want that job, thank you. Yes and no. I mean, yes, 
Yeltsin resigned when he did to help Mr. Putin become president. I think it 
is a slam dunk now that he will be elected but he will be elected because 75% 
of the Russian people support what he is doing. By the way, it's not just the 
war in Chechnya. If you look at opinion polls now, people feel much better 
about the economy. It's gone up to 55% say they are better off now than they 
were six months ago. When you ask the question have you adapted to the 
reforms of the Soviet Union, traditionally for the last ten years that number 
has been about 25%, under Putin it has jumped to 54%. That says that there is 
something else going on here. It is not just a one-issue guy; it is a young 
guy with a pulse in the Kremlin which they haven't had for a long time, and 
so people are cautiously optimistic about the Putin regime. 

GWEN IFILL: And he is a tough talker, right, as well. 

LEON ARON: You got to be both. But I agree with Michael. You know, the 
Russian economy is probably going to post the first real growth of the GDP, 
at least one and a half, probably 2%, the industrial portion of it has grown 
8%. You know, 12 million Russians traveled abroad. They cannot all be 
oligarchs. If they are, the economy is really in good shape. You know, there 
are all kinds of indicators that might cautiously be judged as showing that 
the economy is clawing from under the crisis of the essentially the last ten 
years. So that plus let's not forget the generational factor is extremely 
important. Anybody who travels in Russia in the last few years across the 
political spectrum, across the board, they want somebody who did not spend 
their, his entire most of his life under the old regime.

Tackling corruption 

GWEN IFILL: Dimitri Simes, today, Putin fired Boris Yeltsin's daughter, his 
image maker, who had been under a cloud of suspicion having to do with 
corruption. Do we know that Vladimir Putin is going to be able to tackle the 
corruption issue if his mentor may have been up to his neck in it? 
DIMITRI SIMES: Up to now, Putin was covering up for Yeltsin's corruptions. A 
number of people, most notably the results came, Anatoly Chubais, were 
claiming that put Putin was in his pocket. Up to a point it was convenient 
for Putin because these people made Putin. These people funded Putin. TV 
stations controlled by these people promoted Putin. But now if Putin wants to 
establish himself as a genuine national figure, he has to develop his own 
identity and it is a very smart move on his part to get rid of Tatanya 
Duchenka. There is one minor point, however. I was told that Tatanya Duchenka 
-

GWEN IFILL: Yeltsin's daughter. 

DIMITRI SIMES: Yeltsin's daughter -- obviously knew there was no place for 
her in the Putin administration because her whole role was based on her 
unique relationship with her father, so there is there a little bit less to 
this move than meets the eye.

GWEN IFILL: Let's turn to the Yeltsin legacy. Mr. Aron, Boris Yeltsin 
presided over seven prime ministers, three ruble crises, two wars in 
Chechnya, he survived two heart attacks and then shocked the world with the 
millennium eve resignation. What is his legacy going to be? 

LEON ARON: Well, I think as the secondary and the tertiary kind of falls off 
history and as we take a longer distance, I think he will emerge as one of 
the last revolutionary giants of the past century and certainly somebody of 
that caliber will not be seen in a long time. He will be remembered I think 
as a man who took over a great country at the time of a mortal social crisis, 
imperial crisis, economic crisis in the fall of 1991. He was also - he will 
also be remembered as somebody who took over a decaying, fairly corrupt 
totalitarian state, decentralized it, demilitarized it, withdrew every last 
Russian soldier from Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and put in place 
elements, I repeat elements of democracy and real elements of markets 
economy, not sufficient but real and necessary. And I think this is enough to 
make a place in history for ten men. 

Yeltsin's legacy 

GWEN IFILL: Steven Cohen, Boris Yeltsin's legacy? 

STEPHEN COHEN: Let me be a professor. I thought you might ask the question so 
I took the liberty of a note so I don't forget. I think there is going to be 
three schools of thought among Russian historians about Yeltsin. The point to 
remember is they cannot separate Gorbachev from Yeltsin. The two are going to 
be evaluated together. The first school of thought is going to be to condemn 
both Gorbachev and Yeltsin for destroying the Russian state. The argument is 
going to be Russia must always have a strong state and to destroy it is to 
destroy Russia. So they are both going to be condemned by historians. The 
second view is more or less Leon's view, it will be the Yeltsin the bold, 
Yeltsin the hero of history, Yeltsin who saw Gorbachev was too timid, 
wouldn't break with the system and Yeltsin who broke with the system. He will 
be Yeltsin the Great and the third school will say this - that Gorbachev was 
a great reformer that his gradual, incremental approach to reforming Russia 
was the right way and whatever his failures, he gave, he bequeathed to 
Yeltsin in 1991 many opportunities -- all of which, most of which Yeltsin 
squandered. 

GWEN IFILL: It sounds like the third school is your school? 

STEPHEN COHEN: This school of thought will be called the Boris the squanderer 
and yes, I would adhere to that school of thought.

GWEN IFILL: Michael McFaul. 

MICHAEL McFAUL: The fourth school is, it is a little bit of those two views, 
the problem with our discussion about Russia for the last decade, maybe for 
decades before my time has always been it's either black or it's either 
white. Yeltsin is either a good guy or Yeltsin is a bad guy. The real truth, 
the real historians will write something different. It is a mixed bag. He 
destroyed communism, that's a good thing. He destroyed the Soviet empire, 
that's a good thing. He started capitalism and democracy, those are good 
things. But then he also bombed the White House in October of 1993. That's a 
bad thing. He also went into Chechnya twice. I consider those bad things. I 
think we need to get beyond is it white or black and look at the totality of 
Yeltsin and judge him for both his strengths and his weaknesses. 

A presidential pardon 

GWEN IFILL: What does it mean that he resigned early and got this pardon 
deal? 

DIMITRI SIMES: I think you are asking most of the question because how he 
left his office tells a lot about his going to be remembered in history. He 
is the first Russian democratically-elected president who had to arrange an 
immunity as the first after his successor who had to fix presidential 
elections to make sure that his chosen successor would remain in power 
because otherwise he would be persecuted for his misdeeds. I agree with Leon 
that Yeltsin was a very effective revolutionary. I think, however, he was a 
lousy nation builder. If you left off before he attacked the [Russian] White 
House in 1993, he would be remembered as a revolutionary for those terrible 
things he helped to destroy, but he will be remembered for six years as a 
Russian president between 1993 and 1999 for what he was building. He could 
build a very unattractive state and his chosen successor we were kind of 
hopeful that Yeltsin's successor would be a more vigorous and dynamic version 
of great democrat and Sakharov. Instead we got a younger version of Uri 
Andropov.

MICHAEL McFAUL: There is a giant difference between Uri Andropov and Vladimir 
Putin in that Vladimir Putin will be elected in a free and fair election in 
March. 

DIMITRI SIMES: I have not seen fair elections in Russia under Yeltsin. 

MICHAEL McFAUL: Compared to what? Compared to Andropov and the Soviet period.

GWEN IFILL: Let me step in. Leon Aron, the United States obviously has 
interests at stake here. Is it able to say what the United States will be 
able to get out of this or take from this? 

LEON ARON: As far as Putin as concerned?

GWEN IFILL: Yes.

LEON ARON: I think it's a mixed bag and we better get used to it. On the one 
hand he is, I think he will be elected. We're forgetting that -in broad 
parameters -- he is following public opinion. It is a struggling democracy, 
imperfect democracy, but there are certain consensus on certain things such 
as free elections and free speech. Even the Communist Party doesn't want to 
renationalize the privatized property and so on and so forth. So Putin unlike 
the days of the Cold War, we can't practice criminology, and say Putin will 
do whatever we wants however he wants it -- there are very important 
constraints that cross the entire segment, the entire Russian political 
class, but following public opinion, in other words we got what we prayed 
for, I think he might be tougher than Yeltsin, for example, on a number of 
issues. Take the war in Chechnya. It's very popular. Putin is pursuing it 
because the polls are for that war. 

GWEN IFILL: Whether the US likes it or not? 

LEON ARON: That's right, Yeltsin partly because of his upbringing in the 
party apparatchik could do things that went against public opinion such as 
when he helped in Kosovo to settle that conflict. I'm not sure that a 
popularly elected president such as Putin would be as amenable. 

GWEN IFILL: Thank you very much. I feel like we've just scratched the surface 
but I thank you all for joining us. 

******

#5
Newsweek International
January 10, 1999
[for personal use only]
Chubais to Putin: Go after crime and corruption 

Like many members of Boris Yeltsin's inner circle, Anatoly Chubais has had 
ups and downs—Yeltsin twice fired him from government jobs. A committed 
reformer, Chubais spearheaded the government's controversial privatization 
program in the early '90s, and was a key architect of Yeltsin's 
come-from-behind re-election in 1996. He remains one the Russia's most 
influential public figures. Now the head of the national electric utility, 
United Energy Systems, Chubais spoke with NEWSWEEK contributor Yevgenia 
Albats hours after Yeltsin announced his resignation. Excerpts:

ALBATS: Did you expect Yeltsin's early resignation?
CHUBAIS: The idea as such was known and discussed. However, when I weighed 
the pro and cons, I thought there were more reasons to believe he would not 
resign that soon.

Why?
I was not sure that Yeltsin himself was ready for such a decision.

There was always a theory that Yeltsin would never give up power. What 
happened? Did he get too sick? 
No. Even though it is clear that his health is not great, the roots of the 
decision are different. It's important to note that once again many of us 
underestimated the scale of his personality. As I have said before, he is a 
unique man, one of the few capable of changing history. Yeltsin has always 
paid attention to symbolic things... a new epoch demands new people, a new 
generation.

Will you join the new government? Is there a role for reformers in the new 
government?
Me, I don't think so. However, it is clear that liberal politicians, those on 
the right of the Russian political spectrum, inevitably will and should take 
over.

Are you convinced that [interim President Vladimir] Putin will win in March? 
Now? Yes. If the elections had occurred as scheduled, in June, the situation 
might be very different. I think it is clear that [Communist Party leader 
Gennady] Zyuganov and the communists are history. However, there is another 
threat on the left—represented by [former prime minister Yevgeny] Primakov 
and [Moscow Mayor Yuri] Luzhkov. They represent the idea of nomenklatura, or 
bureaucratic capitalism. The forces that back them have real and vast 
interests to defend, and they won't give up easily. In fact, the main 
political cleavages that Russia faces in the next four—if not eight—years are 
no longer between capitalism and communism, they are between two types of 
capitalism. One is liberal capitalism based on the rule of law and a strong 
state that ensures and reinforces the law. The other is the bureaucratic, 
crony capitalism that exists now.

Crony capitalism has flourished during Yeltsin's presidency. Will Putin move 
against the vast power of Russia's oligarchs?
I think you overplay the oligarch's power. There was a danger of their 
excessive influence over government back in 1997, but the 1998 financial 
crisis significantly undermined their power. The main danger today is 
different. First, it is criminals and their connections to elected or 
appointed officials. Second, the total corruption of government institutions 
from bottom to top, as well as corruption of all other branches—legislature 
and the courts. The new president will have to fight those dangers as well as 
many others; Putin has no choice but to be a reformer, whether some like this 
word or not. He has a unique chance. He has majority [support in the] Duma. 
Should he be elected president—and I have no doubt about that—he will have 
wide popular support and he will have a government and presidential 
administration accountable to him. I also have no doubt that the oligarchs 
will be loyal to him. Overall, he will have a very favorable environment to 
fulfill his ideas and plans.

What are his ideas? What is his political base? Who is he going to rely on?
He will rely on those who are capable of working effectively. The ideology of 
those people will matter little. It won't be only liberals who join his 
government. However, I believe that, when it comes to selecting not only 
executives but also those who will be making political decisions, Putin will 
choose democrats and liberals, rather than those from the left. Second, I 
have no doubt that Putin will take steps to make the state much tougher than 
it is now. By a strong state, I mean a consolidation of power, firm and 
persistent efforts in reinforcing government decisions. However, I see the 
dangers... keeping our history in mind, the danger that the executive branch 
may cross the line and try to exercise its power in civic society.

What about guarantees for personal freedoms?
There are no guarantees—except that that Russia has been living under 
democracy for the last 10 years. Putin and I share the same understanding of 
the role of the state, including its role in the economy, about the necessity 
for Russia to be an open society as opposed to the isolated one, about the 
place of Russia in Europe and the world in general. We talked a lot about 

******

#6
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 
From: edyson@edventure.com (Esther Dyson) 
Subject: Short response to #7 Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000, From: John 
Squier <JohnS@NED.ORG> , Subject: Intriligator Article 

Yes, it's true, Russia has had these great intellectual assets all along,
but not the social/legal conditions to exploit them. However, this comment,
I believe, focuses on the wrong points re the future benefits of IT to
Russia's economy. And though the infrastructure is still, to put it poliely,
lacking, there is now a cadre of experienced, honest (potential)
entrepreneurs in Russia that did not exist ten years ago. 

TO put this in context: The wealth in Bill Gates's pocket is not the major
benefit that IT has brought to the US economy; it's the wealth in everyone
else's pockets. To contradict directly, Russia's high-tech economy can
indeed do a lot "to alleviate crises in agriculture and industry....." It
can help them install efficient production, distribution and management
systems. The point is not just to to employ programmers, but to employ them
so as to employ others, by building systems that farmers, managers,
trucking companies and the like can use. (You'd be amazed how high-tech
most US farmers are by now....) The Net can create markets not just for
goods, but for people and services, and secondary services can rate their
performance.

Certainly this won't be an overnight or wholesale transformation, and Mr.
Squier is right that the social/legal infrastructure is lacking. (IP laws
are still a secondary issue, I'd wager.) However, I see grounds for some
optimism. There is currently a fad starting for Websites and e-commerce in
Russia; investors are poking around ready to spend real money. On the face
of it, this is laughable. But in fact, *any* new business these days needs
to be an e-business. So why not in Russia too? If e-business is a Trojan
horse for regular business, with transparent (competitive) pricing,
responsive communications with customers including after-sales suppport,
efficient inventory management, etc. etc., then let's welcome it. The trick
is not for high-tech to replace the current economy (such as it is), but to
transform it.......and in the short run, simply to create some models to
emulate. Russia needs a new set of heroes!

Just for fun, check out depo.ru, price.ru, many others... (Avtosalon is on
holiday right now!!) 

*******

#7
New York Daily News
2 January 2000
[for personal use only]
Boris' Legacy: What, We Worry?
By Lars-Erik Nelson 

WASHINGTON 

Put the worst possible face on Russian President Boris Yeltsin's sudden 
resignation, and it's still not very scary. We have Yeltsin to thank for that.

The U.S. and Russia are no longer on hair-trigger nuclear alert. The 
Communist Party has just been beaten again in legitimate elections. Moscow 
today is no longer a magnet for the world's discontented people or the 
sponsor of would-be revolutionaries.

Again, thank Yeltsin for that.

True, Yeltsin's chosen successor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is an 
ex-Communist and an ex-KGB officer. Retired Gen. William Odom, former head of 
the National Security Agency, calls him and his cronies "Communists in 
sheep's clothing."

But even Odom, one of America's coldest-eyed analysts of Russia, says Russia 
today is virtually irrelevant to America's national-security concerns and 
barely a threat.

Richard Perle, once the most hawkish of Cold War hawks and now a foreign 
policy adviser to Texas Gov. George Bush, can hardly stifle a yawn as he 
talks about Russia's nuclear arsenal.

"Russia is not an enemy — and their weapons are rusting away anyway," he 
says. Odom agrees: "Their nukes are rotting in their silos."

Russia's gravest problem, in Perle's eyes, is corruption under the Yeltsin 
government — and Putin may crack down on that.

"He does not represent Communist ideology," Odom says. "This is not going to 
be Marxism-Leninism all over again. Russians want a strong state. They want 
collectiveness. They want their own kind of democracy. Even their 
human-rights activists will prefer order to human rights, if human rights 
means lawlessness."

Prof. Robert Legvold of Columbia University's Harriman Institute is not 
concerned about Putin's KGB past, pointing out that two other former prime 
ministers, Yevgeny Primakov and Sergei Stepashin also came out of the old 
Soviet security agency.

But Legvold is somewhat concerned that Putin may be more closely aligned with 
the military than Yeltsin was. That would mean supporting the increasingly 
unpopular war in Chechnya and taking a harder line both at arms-control talks 
with the U.S. and on European security issues, such as Kosovo.

Odom and Legvold suspect that Yeltsin and Putin cooked up their surprise 
transition now, rather than waiting for scheduled elections next June, 
because the Chechen war, on which Putin has built his popularity, might not 
look so successful in six months.

Plus, Legvold says, Putin's obvious opponents — Primakov and Moscow Mayor 
Yuri Luzhkov — are on the defensive following their weak performance in last 
month's parliamentary elections.

"The fact is," Odom said over the phone, "Russia ain't worth worrying about. 
We are so far ahead of them in every possible way — economically, 
technologically, with our global partners and friends — that the only thing 
that could make a difference is the most incompetent and stupid leadership on 
our part."

Yeltsin, for all his faults, set a standard for Putin to build on. He never 
closed down a newspaper or a TV station. He held honest elections. He allowed 
freedom of speech and of travel. He made himself welcome, almost an equal, in 
the world's councils. Putin can't go back. There is nothing to go back to.

*****

Russia's Putin shows his emotional side on TV
By Elizabeth Piper

MOSCOW, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Russia's Acting President Vladimir Putin, shaking 
off his trademark steely manner, said on Tuesday in an interview that Kremlin 
leader President Boris Yeltsin had given his election hopes a boost by 
stepping down early. 

Putin, whose chilling demeanour was honed over 15 years as a KGB officer, 
told ORT public television that his last Kremlin meeting with Yeltsin on New 
Year's Eve was laden with emotion. 

In what appeared to be a carefully rehearsed performance, he described how 
hard it was to accept that Yeltsin was ready to become a pensioner after 
ruling the world's largest country for eight years. 

``It was a difficult experience for him and for all of us, he's a man 
who...sat at the very top in Moscow. This decision is not an easy one to 
take,'' Putin said, pausing repeatedly in his delivery. 

``He was trying to hold it together courageously and when he was saying his 
last words, I almost broke down. When he came out and looked around at the 
windows sadly, he admitted that he was sad to leave.'' 

Yeltsin, 68, chose the last day of the 20th century to resign six months 
early. The move propelled Putin to power as acting president ahead of an 
election due in March. 

Putin drew a comparison between Yeltsin's move and his father's retirement 
which he described as a ``tragedy.'' He said the ailing leader had first 
indicated his intention to quit about 10 days before the announcement. 

``This is linked first of all to the fact that he wanted the presidential 
election campaign to proceed as he wanted,'' Putin said. ``Let's be honest. 
He is providing me with a forum for the presidential campaign and doing so 
deliberately.'' 

Putin, who took office four months after being named prime minister by 
Yeltsin, has become Russia's most popular politician mainly due to his tough 
stance on Moscow's military campaign in separatist Chechnya. He is heavily 
favoured to win the election. 

Russians have largely supported his campaign against Islamic fighters in 
Chechnya and cheered his refusal to be swayed by Western accusations of 
excessive use of force and high civilian casualties. 

Putin opened a crack into his personal life by saying he had taken his wife 
on a New Year trip to Russian-held territory in Chechnya because they had 
always marked Russia's biggest holiday together. 

``The trip had been planned earlier...there was nothing I could do. We always 
celebrated the New Year together,'' he said, describing their champagne 
toasts on board an aircraft. 

Putin said Yeltsin rebuffed his pleas to take time to think over his decision 
to leave office ahead of time. ``His last words were simple -- 'Take care of 
Russia','' Putin said.

******