FACES AND PLACES: Has Russia really changed? (03/02/97)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Has Russia really changed?

While Ukrainians generally remain somewhat wary of the "new Russia," others are not.

Two who believe the old Russia is gone forever are Dmitry Mikheyev, author of "Russia Transformed," and David Aikman, former Moscow correspondent for Time magazine, and author of a laudatory review of Mr. Mikheyev's book that appeared in the February 10 issue of The Weekly Standard.

Dismissing those who believe Russia will always be Russia as out-of-touch, Mr. Aikman maintains, along with Mr. Mikheyev, that "Russia and Russians really have changed character ... Russians may not be Rotarians or Shriners," Mr. Aikman argues, "but they have unequivocally decided that political democracy is infinitely preferable to authoritarianism, that the free market is a better system for creating and distributing wealth than state socialism, and that integrating the Russian national culture into the global culture is a wiser course than Slavophilic isolation."

Mr. Mikheyev argues, according to Mr. Aikman, that despite Russia's shaky economic foundation, the country now exports grain, its food supply is better than ever, and, most important of all, "economic life for the average Russian is better today than at any time in Russian history."

"In 1996," Mr. Mikheyev writes, "Russia is an urbanized, industrialized, relatively homogeneous, ... secular, presidential republic, run by a technocratic elite, with private ownership and the free market, a free press and parliamentarianism."

After crediting Boris Yeltsin for much of the change that has taken place, Mr. Mikheyev calls for more understanding from the West. Russia has arrived, it would seem, and "deserves a warm welcome, encouragement and assistance from the community of civilized nations."

A somewhat different perspective is offered by Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House, in an article titled "Emerging Russia" that appeared in the February 24 issue of National Review. "Despite reforms," he writes, "Russia's economic output has declined for the fifth consecutive year, while - in violation of normal free-market rules - the official unemployment rate is a little over 3 percent."

"It's Russia's government, not its economy which has been privatized," according to Andrei Illarionov, an economic reformer. In short, government posts are used to create personal wealth for the former Communist nomenklatura. Russia's new rich, writes Mr. Karatnycky, "include media moguls, who were granted privileged access to government-owned airwaves; financial groups, which built their wealth on the ability to borrow money at highly profitable rates from the state bank; and leaders of the raw-materials and energy sectors, who were allowed to take ownership of Russia's immense wealth of natural resources. As a result, Russia's economy is rewarding not the most entrepreneurial, but the best-connected."

Since Boris Yeltsin is a prisoner of these powerful interests, argues Mr. Karatnycky, it really doesn't matter whether he is a reformist democrat or a statist hardliner.

What is far more ominous for Ukraine, however, is a new foreign policy doctrine subscribed to by all segments of Russia's political spectrum, a doctrine that seeks to exert dominion over neighboring states.

Citing an essay titled "Theses on the Union" that appeared in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Mr. Karatnycky explains that the document "asserted that the break-up of the USSR was not in the economic interests of the former Soviet republics and advocated a concerted effort to promote political, economic and security integration through peaceful means." Among the many prominent authors of "Theses" is Yurii Dubinin, Russia's new ambassador to Ukraine.

The document offers a step-by-step plan for reintegration beginning with close Russian-Belarusian and Russian-Kazakstani economic, military and political integration that would make it, according to the document, "more and more difficult for Ukrainian leaders to explain to their population the advantages of the policy of self-isolation of Kyiv."

Russia's efforts to reassert its hegemony in Ukraine include: substantial financial support for Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the president of Belarus who supports the reintegration of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine; recommending financial support for Russian minorities in neighboring countries; disputes over the Black Sea Fleet; and the Russian Federation Council's overwhelming adoption of a resolution declaring Sevastopol, a Crimean port city, an integral part of Russia.

In his article, Mr. Karatnycky also cites former Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who believes that Russian foreign policy under President Yeltsin has been drifting into the hands of the KGB. The new security forces, according to Mr. Kozyrev, are nothing more than the KGB warmed-over; the West still is the enemy.

What is Russia today? Mr. Karatnycky writes: "If Russia is now a democracy with a market economy [as Messrs. Mikheyev and Aikman suggest], a major factor in the new world order has been assured ... But if Russia is not a free-market democracy but a corporatist state run by a nomenklatura representing the interests of industry, finance, agriculture and energy, if it is governed by a new anti-Western and pro-imperial consensus, then we must prepare for a complex, dangerous world."

Should the United States continue to provide aid to Russia? Both Mr. Aikman and Mr. Karatnycky say yes. All is not black, suggests Mr. Karatnycky. Recent polls indicate that the Russian people do not share the neo-imperialist sentiments of the elite; they do not fear an expansion of NATO; they are pleased with their limited democracy. "Above all," concludes Mr. Karatnycky, "the new generation of emerging Russian leaders appears to be growing more pro-Western in its cultural, economic and political preferences ... U.S. policy should be oriented toward influencing these future leaders."

At this juncture, no one can really say which way Russia will go. Will the emerging new leaders ever make it to the top, or will they be eliminated, either politically or physically, along the way? Can the will of the Russian people prevail in Russia, or will the new nomenklatura continue to find a way to usurp the public will? Is Ukraine's new nomenklatura really all that different from Russia's?

The answers to those questions may well determine Ukraine's future.

Readers may e-mail me at: 73753.3315@Compuserve.com.

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