December 17, 2007 — Contents

MONDAY DECEMBER 17 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: Suicide isn’t Painless

(2) Exploding the Myth of Putin’s Success

(3) Russian Logic 101

(4) Russia Teaches the World about Love

(5) Annals of Russian Propaganda: More Russia Today Ads

NOTE: In just a week after the announcement by the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor, not one but three different presidential rivals have been stymied in their efforts to begin their campaigns. Publius Pundit has our overview of these appalling developments, which clearly show the Kremln’s classic neo-Soviet weakness and paranoia. Feel free to leave your comments as to how the West can best respond to this latest neo-Soviet outrage.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

EDITORIAL: Suicide Isn’t Painless

EDITORIAL

Suicide Isn’t Painless

We reported last week on yet another instance in neo-Soviet Russia of an opposition activist being yanked off the street and chucked into a psychiatric gulag. It seems that the Kremlin may really have convinced itself that anyone who would think of criticizing them is “crazy” and needs medication, just as the old Politburo had done.

And maybe they’re right.

Garry Kasparov sure seems to have gotten the message. The Moscow Times reported last week that after being arrested and having his wife and child harassed at the Sheremetvo airport with “document checks” until their plane had departed without them, and after the Kremlin denied his “Other Russia” party access to every meeting hall in Moscow for their nominating convention (as well as harassing them when they sought to bury one of their fallen comrades) he decided not to run for president after all.

It’s easy to criticize Garry’s decision as pathetically weak and cowardly, which it certainly was. After all, a really committed group of people could meet in barn or a forest clearing for that matter. Look at what Russia accomplished during the Siege of Leningrad. In India, Gandhi organized millions to march in bare feet and stand down rifles with bare hands.

But anyone who has lived in Russia knows how the country can tax your strength and exhaust your resolve. Many have plunged into Russia, like Warren Beatty’s character in Reds, full of idealism and illusion only to find their bubbles burst, and then their worlds. What beat Kasparov is not Vladimir Putin’s goons, but the people of Russia themselvs — whose unflagging, craven apathy, cowardice, indifference and complicity force one to ask the question: “Are these people really worth fighting for, much less risking your life to save?”

Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Foundation, one of Russia’s last remaining heroes, has concluded that the Russian people have decided to commit suicide, that they’ve simply given up on the idea of making life better in Russia. She states: “After the presidential election, we will have an utterly weak, destroyed parliament, a destroyed multi-party system, a wrecked constitution, and finally a weak presidency, which he requires for his self-proclaimed role as leader.” And the Russian people will have stood idly by and watched it all happen. In the space of just a few weeks, Putin negated the presidency by moving towards the prime ministry and negated the legislature by filling it with a single sycophantic party. A judiciary was never allowed to establish itself, the media establishment was brutally, physically crushed, and local government was negated long ago when Putin seized control over the governors. Russian parents have committed the one unpardonable sin of parenthood, to condemn their children to live out past mistakes.

L’etat, c’est Putin.

Did Russians know when they allowed Putin to take power that he would obliterate all the branches of government? How could they not have known? The only reason the people of Russia ever heard of Putin was that Boris Yeltsin introduced them. The people despised Boris Yeltsin, yet they voted overwhelmingly for his successor. Perhaps they felt that, vile though he was, if an anti-Communist maverick like Yeltsin could sell his soul to the devil and be responsible for bringing the KGB back to power only a few years after it had destroyed the USSR, then there really was no hope for Russia at all.

Putin is doing exactly what one would expect him to do as a proud KGB spy steeped in propaganda and able to think in only one way — he’s repeating the mistakes of the past. Just as Lenin made no provision for a successor, causing the nation to collapse into Stalinism and ultimate destruction when he passed away, Putin too is putting all Russia’s eggs in one basket, his own, as if he would live forever. He won’t.

And yet, there is no sign that Putin has any overarching commitment to any sort of idealism, as Lenin had. So we must ask: Is Putin simply part of the suicide movement, its instrumentality? Anders Aslund reported last week in the Moscow Times on information regarding Putin’s personal corruption that has begun circulating on the Internet. Aslund states: “The strongest evidence is the Marina Salye report on Putin’s corrupt foreign trade deals in St. Petersburg in 1992. The report has long been known, but the original has not been publicized until now. Two days before the election, a scanned report of the original popped up on several Russian web sites, and it suggested that Putin and his friends embezzled $92 million during the days he worked under St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. It was first leaked on the free-wheeling livejournal.ru, which was quickly bought by Alexander Mamut, a Kremlin-friendly oligarch.” Previously, Aslund had reported speculation that Putin’s personal wealth may now be in the billions.

So perhaps Putin doesn’t even care about Russia in his own warped sense of “patriotism,” but rather has concluded with the rest of his countrymen that the nation can’t and won’t survive, so grab what you can.

Russia’s demographic issues do indeed seem insoluble. Every year during Putin’s rule the workforce has grown smaller and the adult lifespan has grown shorter. The disparity between rich and poor has grown wider, and Russia’s enemies have grown more numerous. Russia can’t count a single major nation of the world as its true friend, and the rogue states like Iran and Venezuela with which it has courted alliances could stab Russia in the back at any moment.

Then there’s China. It’s impossible to imagine a scenario under which Russia will be able to safeguard its increasingly unpopulated Siberian territory from the expanding Chinese juggernaut, and with that territory will go the lion’s share of Russia’s oil resources. Without its oil, which will run out some day in any case, Russia cannot even present the illusion of a nation.

Of course, Russia could surrender Siberia to China and begin to operate a civilized society along the lines of prosperous former Soviet slave states like Poland and Czech Republic. But doing so would require one thing Russia seems to lack: a population that loves the country and wants to make sacrifices and take risks and shoulder heavy burdens to help it prosper. Russians always seem to want to take the easy way out, perhaps because they themselves don’t believe they are worth saving.

And maybe they’re right.

Russia, after all, isn’t India. It doesn’t seem that the people of Russia would rise to follow anyone, regardless of who it was, even a Russian version of Gandhi, because they have no deep-rooted belief system like the Indians had for such a leader to tap into. Perhaps so many years of Tsarist and Soviet rule have destroyed their roots and beliefs, and left them wandering like Jack Nicholson’s character after his lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And now, perhaps they go to meet the same fate. Perhaps all the provocation their government is issuing against the NATO allies is actually just a plea for NATO to open fire and put Russia out of its misery.

The only times in their history that Russians have been willing to stand and fight for something as a people is when they faced foreign invaders. Russians were willing to risk all against Germans and Frenchmen, but not against other Russians. They fought Napoleon and Hitler, but not Stalin and Brezhnev. It almost seemed as if, when a Russian decided that other Russians needed to suffer and forfeit their lives, the Russian people had to agree. The Bolshevik revolution is no exception; the battles fought during it were minor skirmishes involving only tiny armies, with most of the Russian population standing on the sidelines, gaping. The Tsar fell not because the Russian people dragged him down, but because they would not life a finger to protect him.

Viewed that way, most of Russian history can be understood as one long plunge from a great height towards jagged rocks below.

Still, though, there is no point in giving up on Russia until the collapse comes. We must surely begin preparing for that collapse right away, and that alone is reason enough to keep on top of the Russian problem. Moreover, all sports fans can tell stories about games that seemed utterly lost but which finally were won, perhaps even in the final seconds. Who can say whether someone may step from the wings to galvanize the Russians into a new burst of civilized energy in a last ditch effort to pull back from the abyss? And who can say that our support may not be necessary to encourage her to take that step?

On we go.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Myth of Putin’s Success

Writing in the International Herald Tribune (summarizing a longer essay to appear in the next issue of Foreign Affairs), Michael McFaul, a professor of political science and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, associate director for research at the Center, expose the mythology of Vladimir Putin’s “successful” rule over Russia:

Vladimir Putin’s designation of Dmitri Medvedev as his preferred successor should be more than enough for Medvedev to win the March presidential election in Russia by a landslide. Not surprisingly, he has already pledged to continue his mentor’s policies and suggested that Putin become prime minister to ensure his continued involvement in ruling Russia.

As far as most Russians are concerned, this is all to the good, since they give Putin high marks for restoring the Russian state and jump-starting the Russian economy.

According to the conventional narrative, under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, the Russian state did not govern, the economy shrank and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished and the average Russian is living better than ever before. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.

But this conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation. The emergence of Russian democracy in the 1990s did indeed coincide with state breakdown and economic decline, but it did not cause either.

The reemergence of Russian autocracy under Putin, conversely, has coincided with tremendous economic growth but did not cause it. If anything, Putin’s autocratic turn over the last several years has reduced gains from what they would have been had democracy survived.

The Russian state under Putin is certainly bigger than it was before, and in some spheres – such as paying pensions and government salaries on time, road building, or educational spending – it is doing better now than during the 1990s. Yet given the growth in its size and resources, what is striking is how poorly the Russian state still performs. In terms of public safety, health, corruption and the security of property rights, Russians are just as badly or actually worse off today than they were a decade ago.

The murder rate has increased under Putin. Health spending averaged only 6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since 1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998. At the end of the 1990s, annual alcohol consumption per adult was 10.7 liters; by 2004, this figure had increased to 14.5 liters. In short, the data simply do not support the popular notion that Putin’s more autocratic state is also a more capable or effective state in addressing Russia’s significant public policy challenges.

Nevertheless, supporters might respond, Putin’s autocratic ways have at least paved the way for Russia’s spectacular economic growth. Growth in Russia has indeed averaged an impressive 6.7 percent during Putin’s tenure. Since 2000, real disposable income has increased by more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending has skyrocketed, unemployment has fallen, and poverty has decreased.

But this economic recovery is actually unexceptional compared to the rest of the post-communist world. The entire region experienced economic recession and then began to recover several years after the adoption of reforms. Russia’s economy has followed this same general trajectory – and would have done so under dictatorship or democracy.

Putin arrived on the scene at a good time in Russia’s economic cycle, and got even luckier as oil prices rose worldwide. Increasing authoritarianism inside Russia had nothing to do with the latter.

If there is any causal relationship between authoritarianism and economic growth in Russia, it is negative. Russia’s more autocratic system in the last several years has produced more corruption and less secure property rights. Asset transfers have transformed a thriving private energy sector into one that is effectively state-dominated and less efficient. Re-nationlization has caused declines in the performance of formerly private companies, destroyed value in Russia’s most profitable companies, and slowed investment, both foreign and domestic.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that Putin’s autocracy has hurt rather than helped Russia’s economy is provided by regional comparisons. Between 1999 and 2006, Russia ranked ninth out of the 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of average growth. Similarly, investment in Russia, at 18 percent of GDP, although stronger today than ever before, is well below the average for democracies in the region like Poland and Estonia.

One can only wonder how much faster Russia would have grown with a more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of accountability – a real opposition party, genuinely independent media, a court system not beholden to Kremlin control – would have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth. In short, to sustain Russian growth and rebuild the Russian state over the long haul, Medvedev needs to move past Putin’s autocratic legacy rather than emulate it.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Myth of Putin’s Success

Writing in the International Herald Tribune (summarizing a longer essay to appear in the next issue of Foreign Affairs), Michael McFaul, a professor of political science and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, associate director for research at the Center, expose the mythology of Vladimir Putin’s “successful” rule over Russia:

Vladimir Putin’s designation of Dmitri Medvedev as his preferred successor should be more than enough for Medvedev to win the March presidential election in Russia by a landslide. Not surprisingly, he has already pledged to continue his mentor’s policies and suggested that Putin become prime minister to ensure his continued involvement in ruling Russia.

As far as most Russians are concerned, this is all to the good, since they give Putin high marks for restoring the Russian state and jump-starting the Russian economy.

According to the conventional narrative, under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, the Russian state did not govern, the economy shrank and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished and the average Russian is living better than ever before. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.

But this conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation. The emergence of Russian democracy in the 1990s did indeed coincide with state breakdown and economic decline, but it did not cause either.

The reemergence of Russian autocracy under Putin, conversely, has coincided with tremendous economic growth but did not cause it. If anything, Putin’s autocratic turn over the last several years has reduced gains from what they would have been had democracy survived.

The Russian state under Putin is certainly bigger than it was before, and in some spheres – such as paying pensions and government salaries on time, road building, or educational spending – it is doing better now than during the 1990s. Yet given the growth in its size and resources, what is striking is how poorly the Russian state still performs. In terms of public safety, health, corruption and the security of property rights, Russians are just as badly or actually worse off today than they were a decade ago.

The murder rate has increased under Putin. Health spending averaged only 6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since 1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998. At the end of the 1990s, annual alcohol consumption per adult was 10.7 liters; by 2004, this figure had increased to 14.5 liters. In short, the data simply do not support the popular notion that Putin’s more autocratic state is also a more capable or effective state in addressing Russia’s significant public policy challenges.

Nevertheless, supporters might respond, Putin’s autocratic ways have at least paved the way for Russia’s spectacular economic growth. Growth in Russia has indeed averaged an impressive 6.7 percent during Putin’s tenure. Since 2000, real disposable income has increased by more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending has skyrocketed, unemployment has fallen, and poverty has decreased.

But this economic recovery is actually unexceptional compared to the rest of the post-communist world. The entire region experienced economic recession and then began to recover several years after the adoption of reforms. Russia’s economy has followed this same general trajectory – and would have done so under dictatorship or democracy.

Putin arrived on the scene at a good time in Russia’s economic cycle, and got even luckier as oil prices rose worldwide. Increasing authoritarianism inside Russia had nothing to do with the latter.

If there is any causal relationship between authoritarianism and economic growth in Russia, it is negative. Russia’s more autocratic system in the last several years has produced more corruption and less secure property rights. Asset transfers have transformed a thriving private energy sector into one that is effectively state-dominated and less efficient. Re-nationlization has caused declines in the performance of formerly private companies, destroyed value in Russia’s most profitable companies, and slowed investment, both foreign and domestic.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that Putin’s autocracy has hurt rather than helped Russia’s economy is provided by regional comparisons. Between 1999 and 2006, Russia ranked ninth out of the 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of average growth. Similarly, investment in Russia, at 18 percent of GDP, although stronger today than ever before, is well below the average for democracies in the region like Poland and Estonia.

One can only wonder how much faster Russia would have grown with a more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of accountability – a real opposition party, genuinely independent media, a court system not beholden to Kremlin control – would have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth. In short, to sustain Russian growth and rebuild the Russian state over the long haul, Medvedev needs to move past Putin’s autocratic legacy rather than emulate it.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Myth of Putin’s Success

Writing in the International Herald Tribune (summarizing a longer essay to appear in the next issue of Foreign Affairs), Michael McFaul, a professor of political science and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, associate director for research at the Center, expose the mythology of Vladimir Putin’s “successful” rule over Russia:

Vladimir Putin’s designation of Dmitri Medvedev as his preferred successor should be more than enough for Medvedev to win the March presidential election in Russia by a landslide. Not surprisingly, he has already pledged to continue his mentor’s policies and suggested that Putin become prime minister to ensure his continued involvement in ruling Russia.

As far as most Russians are concerned, this is all to the good, since they give Putin high marks for restoring the Russian state and jump-starting the Russian economy.

According to the conventional narrative, under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, the Russian state did not govern, the economy shrank and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished and the average Russian is living better than ever before. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.

But this conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation. The emergence of Russian democracy in the 1990s did indeed coincide with state breakdown and economic decline, but it did not cause either.

The reemergence of Russian autocracy under Putin, conversely, has coincided with tremendous economic growth but did not cause it. If anything, Putin’s autocratic turn over the last several years has reduced gains from what they would have been had democracy survived.

The Russian state under Putin is certainly bigger than it was before, and in some spheres – such as paying pensions and government salaries on time, road building, or educational spending – it is doing better now than during the 1990s. Yet given the growth in its size and resources, what is striking is how poorly the Russian state still performs. In terms of public safety, health, corruption and the security of property rights, Russians are just as badly or actually worse off today than they were a decade ago.

The murder rate has increased under Putin. Health spending averaged only 6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since 1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998. At the end of the 1990s, annual alcohol consumption per adult was 10.7 liters; by 2004, this figure had increased to 14.5 liters. In short, the data simply do not support the popular notion that Putin’s more autocratic state is also a more capable or effective state in addressing Russia’s significant public policy challenges.

Nevertheless, supporters might respond, Putin’s autocratic ways have at least paved the way for Russia’s spectacular economic growth. Growth in Russia has indeed averaged an impressive 6.7 percent during Putin’s tenure. Since 2000, real disposable income has increased by more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending has skyrocketed, unemployment has fallen, and poverty has decreased.

But this economic recovery is actually unexceptional compared to the rest of the post-communist world. The entire region experienced economic recession and then began to recover several years after the adoption of reforms. Russia’s economy has followed this same general trajectory – and would have done so under dictatorship or democracy.

Putin arrived on the scene at a good time in Russia’s economic cycle, and got even luckier as oil prices rose worldwide. Increasing authoritarianism inside Russia had nothing to do with the latter.

If there is any causal relationship between authoritarianism and economic growth in Russia, it is negative. Russia’s more autocratic system in the last several years has produced more corruption and less secure property rights. Asset transfers have transformed a thriving private energy sector into one that is effectively state-dominated and less efficient. Re-nationlization has caused declines in the performance of formerly private companies, destroyed value in Russia’s most profitable companies, and slowed investment, both foreign and domestic.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that Putin’s autocracy has hurt rather than helped Russia’s economy is provided by regional comparisons. Between 1999 and 2006, Russia ranked ninth out of the 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of average growth. Similarly, investment in Russia, at 18 percent of GDP, although stronger today than ever before, is well below the average for democracies in the region like Poland and Estonia.

One can only wonder how much faster Russia would have grown with a more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of accountability – a real opposition party, genuinely independent media, a court system not beholden to Kremlin control – would have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth. In short, to sustain Russian growth and rebuild the Russian state over the long haul, Medvedev needs to move past Putin’s autocratic legacy rather than emulate it.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Myth of Putin’s Success

Writing in the International Herald Tribune (summarizing a longer essay to appear in the next issue of Foreign Affairs), Michael McFaul, a professor of political science and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, associate director for research at the Center, expose the mythology of Vladimir Putin’s “successful” rule over Russia:

Vladimir Putin’s designation of Dmitri Medvedev as his preferred successor should be more than enough for Medvedev to win the March presidential election in Russia by a landslide. Not surprisingly, he has already pledged to continue his mentor’s policies and suggested that Putin become prime minister to ensure his continued involvement in ruling Russia.

As far as most Russians are concerned, this is all to the good, since they give Putin high marks for restoring the Russian state and jump-starting the Russian economy.

According to the conventional narrative, under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, the Russian state did not govern, the economy shrank and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished and the average Russian is living better than ever before. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.

But this conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation. The emergence of Russian democracy in the 1990s did indeed coincide with state breakdown and economic decline, but it did not cause either.

The reemergence of Russian autocracy under Putin, conversely, has coincided with tremendous economic growth but did not cause it. If anything, Putin’s autocratic turn over the last several years has reduced gains from what they would have been had democracy survived.

The Russian state under Putin is certainly bigger than it was before, and in some spheres – such as paying pensions and government salaries on time, road building, or educational spending – it is doing better now than during the 1990s. Yet given the growth in its size and resources, what is striking is how poorly the Russian state still performs. In terms of public safety, health, corruption and the security of property rights, Russians are just as badly or actually worse off today than they were a decade ago.

The murder rate has increased under Putin. Health spending averaged only 6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since 1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998. At the end of the 1990s, annual alcohol consumption per adult was 10.7 liters; by 2004, this figure had increased to 14.5 liters. In short, the data simply do not support the popular notion that Putin’s more autocratic state is also a more capable or effective state in addressing Russia’s significant public policy challenges.

Nevertheless, supporters might respond, Putin’s autocratic ways have at least paved the way for Russia’s spectacular economic growth. Growth in Russia has indeed averaged an impressive 6.7 percent during Putin’s tenure. Since 2000, real disposable income has increased by more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending has skyrocketed, unemployment has fallen, and poverty has decreased.

But this economic recovery is actually unexceptional compared to the rest of the post-communist world. The entire region experienced economic recession and then began to recover several years after the adoption of reforms. Russia’s economy has followed this same general trajectory – and would have done so under dictatorship or democracy.

Putin arrived on the scene at a good time in Russia’s economic cycle, and got even luckier as oil prices rose worldwide. Increasing authoritarianism inside Russia had nothing to do with the latter.

If there is any causal relationship between authoritarianism and economic growth in Russia, it is negative. Russia’s more autocratic system in the last several years has produced more corruption and less secure property rights. Asset transfers have transformed a thriving private energy sector into one that is effectively state-dominated and less efficient. Re-nationlization has caused declines in the performance of formerly private companies, destroyed value in Russia’s most profitable companies, and slowed investment, both foreign and domestic.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that Putin’s autocracy has hurt rather than helped Russia’s economy is provided by regional comparisons. Between 1999 and 2006, Russia ranked ninth out of the 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of average growth. Similarly, investment in Russia, at 18 percent of GDP, although stronger today than ever before, is well below the average for democracies in the region like Poland and Estonia.

One can only wonder how much faster Russia would have grown with a more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of accountability – a real opposition party, genuinely independent media, a court system not beholden to Kremlin control – would have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth. In short, to sustain Russian growth and rebuild the Russian state over the long haul, Medvedev needs to move past Putin’s autocratic legacy rather than emulate it.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Myth of Putin’s Success

Writing in the International Herald Tribune (summarizing a longer essay to appear in the next issue of Foreign Affairs), Michael McFaul, a professor of political science and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, associate director for research at the Center, expose the mythology of Vladimir Putin’s “successful” rule over Russia:

Vladimir Putin’s designation of Dmitri Medvedev as his preferred successor should be more than enough for Medvedev to win the March presidential election in Russia by a landslide. Not surprisingly, he has already pledged to continue his mentor’s policies and suggested that Putin become prime minister to ensure his continued involvement in ruling Russia.

As far as most Russians are concerned, this is all to the good, since they give Putin high marks for restoring the Russian state and jump-starting the Russian economy.

According to the conventional narrative, under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, the Russian state did not govern, the economy shrank and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished and the average Russian is living better than ever before. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.

But this conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation. The emergence of Russian democracy in the 1990s did indeed coincide with state breakdown and economic decline, but it did not cause either.

The reemergence of Russian autocracy under Putin, conversely, has coincided with tremendous economic growth but did not cause it. If anything, Putin’s autocratic turn over the last several years has reduced gains from what they would have been had democracy survived.

The Russian state under Putin is certainly bigger than it was before, and in some spheres – such as paying pensions and government salaries on time, road building, or educational spending – it is doing better now than during the 1990s. Yet given the growth in its size and resources, what is striking is how poorly the Russian state still performs. In terms of public safety, health, corruption and the security of property rights, Russians are just as badly or actually worse off today than they were a decade ago.

The murder rate has increased under Putin. Health spending averaged only 6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since 1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998. At the end of the 1990s, annual alcohol consumption per adult was 10.7 liters; by 2004, this figure had increased to 14.5 liters. In short, the data simply do not support the popular notion that Putin’s more autocratic state is also a more capable or effective state in addressing Russia’s significant public policy challenges.

Nevertheless, supporters might respond, Putin’s autocratic ways have at least paved the way for Russia’s spectacular economic growth. Growth in Russia has indeed averaged an impressive 6.7 percent during Putin’s tenure. Since 2000, real disposable income has increased by more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending has skyrocketed, unemployment has fallen, and poverty has decreased.

But this economic recovery is actually unexceptional compared to the rest of the post-communist world. The entire region experienced economic recession and then began to recover several years after the adoption of reforms. Russia’s economy has followed this same general trajectory – and would have done so under dictatorship or democracy.

Putin arrived on the scene at a good time in Russia’s economic cycle, and got even luckier as oil prices rose worldwide. Increasing authoritarianism inside Russia had nothing to do with the latter.

If there is any causal relationship between authoritarianism and economic growth in Russia, it is negative. Russia’s more autocratic system in the last several years has produced more corruption and less secure property rights. Asset transfers have transformed a thriving private energy sector into one that is effectively state-dominated and less efficient. Re-nationlization has caused declines in the performance of formerly private companies, destroyed value in Russia’s most profitable companies, and slowed investment, both foreign and domestic.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that Putin’s autocracy has hurt rather than helped Russia’s economy is provided by regional comparisons. Between 1999 and 2006, Russia ranked ninth out of the 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of average growth. Similarly, investment in Russia, at 18 percent of GDP, although stronger today than ever before, is well below the average for democracies in the region like Poland and Estonia.

One can only wonder how much faster Russia would have grown with a more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of accountability – a real opposition party, genuinely independent media, a court system not beholden to Kremlin control – would have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth. In short, to sustain Russian growth and rebuild the Russian state over the long haul, Medvedev needs to move past Putin’s autocratic legacy rather than emulate it.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Russian Logic 101: If You Kill Everybody, Then You Dont’ Have to Worry About Anybody Slipping and Falling on the Ice

The Moscow News reports that Moscow is using radioactive toxins to de-ice its streets:

Ecological considerations are the chief concerns. Last year, the Moscow authorities bought over 14 metric tons of a “new generation” anti-ice agent. The product is produced from chemical residue at the Solikamsk magnesium waste elimination site in the Perm province. In the past two years, 159,000 tons of waste have been moved from the site, as the Solikamsk city hall proudly reports on its official Web site. For some reason – either the 2006 winter was too mild or the government contracting authority suspected that all was not well – the agent has barely been used in Moscow, and is now in storage. Several days ago, officials from the interregional agency, “For the Security of Russian Roads,” accompanied by a group of environmentalists, paid a visit to one of the city’s warehouses where the agent was stored. Subsequent tests showed that the chemical agent was indeed radioactive.

In October, First Deputy Mayor Pyotr Biryukov ordered Artur Keskinov, the head of the Housing, Utilities, and Amenity Provision Department, together with all deputy prefects, to file suits with the city Arbitration Court. The suit was to demand the replacement of “inferior chemicals,” the use of which has been banned since the summer, after they had been found to have an excessive content of insoluble residue and a dangerous pH level. At the same time, the decision was made to return the agent to the supplier – the Perm-based company SBG Treyding.

This year, a contact for the supply of snow- melting chemicals went to the NPP Protivo­gololednye sredstva i reagenty (Anti-Ice Materials and Agents) science and production enterprise (PGS). The agent that it intends to supply is called Ekosol, which is produced at the Urals anti-ice and snow-melting materials plant. Meanwhile, environmentalists suspect that Ekosol is made from the same electrolytic waste, which only recently was used for making SBG.

Secrets

“Officials at Biryukov’s office were furious,” says Marina Orlova, press secretary for the Housing, Utilities, and Amenity Provision Department. “They said, ‘If you spread information alleging that we are buying radioactive waste, you will be sued. Ekosol is out of the question. No one will allow it to be used in the streets.” She continued, saying that agents containing calcium chloride modified, calcium chloride and modified sodium will be used this year. “They will be supplied by the winner of the tender, PGS.”

“As soon as there are any results, we will be ready to meet,” a PGS manager, who refused to identify himself, told reporters. “For now, our senior executives are on the run.”

“Okay, so we will write, ‘on the run.’ We only wanted to know what solid agents you will be supplying,” The Moscow News said.

“We receive solid agents from the Urals anti-ice materials plant,” PGS said. “This particular agent is called Ekosol, thus far it is the only solid agent available on the market. The manufacturer’s brand is not specified in the contract with the contracting authority and we only have a general description: ‘solid composite agents based on calcium chloride and sodium in compressed form,’ Ekosol fits this description. As for who will be shipping it to us, that is a commercial secret.”

The remark “executives are on the run” sounds rather dubious, especially considering the tender procedure. In October, the Moscow City Com­petition Policy Department submitted a tender for a 1.5 billion ruble ($60 million) contract to supply anti-ice and snow melting materials for the 2007-08 winter season. Apart from PGS, several other companies with a good, established track record on the market made their bids, namely, Ziraks, Avgust 94, Bursintez M, Kaustik, NPO Reagenty, Sokopuskovsky sintez, Reagenty, and Antilyod. Five of six lots were won by PGS, which had first been registered only two months prior to the tender.

The losing companies appealed to the Moscow city authorities, asserting that on two lots, PGS had presented to the bidding commission samples of agents which were protected by RF patents and on which the winner had no licensing agreements with the holders of those patents.

“PGS presented samples of our liquid agent AGS,” said Dmitry Kuzmenko, deputy chief engineer at the OAO Kaustik open type joint stock company. “As for solid agents, KhK and KhKNM, they are manufactured by Ziraks at a mineral deposit in Volgograd, while PGS committed forgery by presenting KhK and KhKNM samples taken from a shipment delivered for the previous season. Here’s the trick: according to bidding documents, one specific agent is to be delivered, whereas PGS will attempt to replace it with Ekosol. It was previously known as SBG, but starting this year, it has been banned. SBG and Ekosol are identical in their chemical composition, their appearance, and their radioactive effect: both will show exactly the same reading on the dosimeter.”

Furthermore, Ekosol’s safety assessment says that in large doses the agent can have a mutating effect. Chlorides alter the organoleptic properties of water – that is to say, give it a peculiar flavor and smell, salinate soil, and destroy flora and fauna.

However, after the October amendments to a law on state orders kicked in, the supplier is not obligated to disclose in the bidding documents who produces the agents, or where. The angry producers warned that the Moscow city hall was in danger of being duped and left empty handed, but Gennady Degtev, head of the Competition Police Department, accused the suppliers of collusion, pointing out that they are exerting pressure on the bid evaluation commission.

The Urals plant has denied any involvement in SBG production.

“We do not manufacture SBG,” said a plant manager who identified himself as Rustam Khalafovich. “And then SBG and Ekosol are made from completely different materials – magnesium byproducts (SBG) and calcium chloride (Ekosol) – and they are made from components that are bought from different producers. I cannot disclose the names of these producers: that is a commercial secret. As for high radiation levels, that is a lie. SBG does use potassium as a component, which is radioactive, and SBG’s radiation level does not exceed official construction safety levels. As for Ekosol, it does not have any potassium in it at all.”

That seems to be in conflict with the information posted on SBG trading Web site, which says, among other things, that “composite SBG agents, produced by the Urals anti-ice materials plant, are the most advanced and unique product of the domestic industry.” It is also at odds with government specifications, which state that B-brand Ekosol contains as much as 10 percent calcium.

Hold Your Breath

Following the recent inspection, the Public Union of Environmental Organizations sent letters to the city hall and the Moscow City Duma, stressing the need to establish an independent control agency to monitor the quality of agents that are brought into the capital.

“The problem is that one agent can be presented for examination, but an entirely different one can be spread on the city’s street,” said Andrei Frolov, a Union co-chairman. “That is not against the law. Now, not only producers, but also middlemen can supply agents, and it seems that they will be supplied from, among others, those that have recently been put off limits – in particular, from the Perm province, Solikamsk. Whereas in the past there was at least some guarantee that the agents were not too toxic, now there is none whatsoever.”

When asked if he was referring to Ekosol he replied, “I would not like to mention any names, to avoid claims. But the situation is rather complex. Ekosol has safety certificates, which say that although it is dangerous it can be used, but then any paper can be bought. We took measurements: there is absolutely no reason to say that the stuff that we have to walk on is safe. There is a high content of heavy metals. And then all of that dries up and turns into dust, while about 40 percent of everything that comes into our bodies comes from the air that we breathe.”

Radioactivity meter readings in Moscow showed that SBG bags had radiation levels three times above natural radioactivity levels.

“Yes, there is definitely cause for concern,” said Yelena Ter Matrirosova, PR manager at the Radon MosNPO, a radiation monitoring agency. “But what is the real danger? If you were to eat or drink these agents, that would be very bad. Yet if you just walk on them, there is no danger. For example, granite also has a high natural background radiation level. For example, it is pretty high near the Griboyedov monument on Chistye Prudy, but then no one stands there for hours. So the monument is still where it is.”

It seems that Perm is going to use its own product. As soon as it became known that Moscow was determined to return tons of SBG to the supplier, the Perm residents were told about the cutting-edge wonder-working agent. “This winter, the city’s streets will be treated with SBG,” the local media reported proudly. “According to the Perm city administration, since this technology is entirely new, the agent will be used on a stage by stage basis – at first, in the downtown area. If it proves effective, it could then be used throughout the city.”

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Russia Teaches the World Something about Love

InfoWorld reports:

We’ve seen the reports on popular news programs and talk shows for years — (cue Geraldo voice) men who pose as chivalrous mates to vulnerable women only to end up taking off with their savings, leaving a trail of broken hearts and emptied bank accounts in their wake.

Apparently, malware posing itself as a man has finally caught up to the real deal.

According to a report issued by AV software maker PC Tools, a new program has appeared in online dating chat rooms in Russia that advertises itself as an attractive male romance candidate, flirts with available females, and attempts to trick those ladies (and men?) who fall for its lecherous ploys into handing over their personal data. Dubbed by the firm as “CyberLover,” PC Tools researchers claim that the program can conduct “fully automated flirtatious conversations” before trying to lure people into handing over their details, or tricking them to visit malware-infested Web sites. Based on the company’s research into the program’s authors, the researchers said that CyberLover is capable of building new relationships with up to ten partners in only 30 minutes (can any real man match that?). The malware code writers claim of course that victims of the threat can’t begin to distinguish the program it from a human being. Beyond that, PC Tools submits that CyberLover represents a new breed of malicious program that can truly mimic human behavior during online interactions to carry out their nefarious schemes, one that the company said could become increasingly popular. “As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering,” Sergei Shevchenko, senior malware analyst at PC Tools, said in a research note on the threat. “It employs highly intelligent and customized dialogue to target users of social networking systems.”

Part of the danger of the automated lover is that it is “designed as a bot [robot] that lures victims automatically, without human intervention,” the expert maintains. The CyberLover software can also cloak itself in a number of personality types, including “romantic lover” to “sexual predator,” PC Tools said. Something tells me that the romantic lover iteration just might catch a few more flies than the one advertising itself as a sexual predator… but you just never know online, do you? The program is also pre-programmed with a range of “dialogue scenarios” that involve different types of questions and discussion topics to be aimed at potential victims. The threat was designed specifically to recognize certain likely responses from chat-room users to further tailor its subsequent interactions, the researchers said. I wonder how it responds to expressions like “what are you wearing,” “how much money do you make,” or the time-honored “leave me alone you predictable jerk.” PC Tools said that the attack also compiles a report on each person it interacts with which it funnels back to a remote source for safekeeping. The report can include information such as a victim’s name, contact details and photo. As part of its attack, CyberLover invites potential victims to visit its personal Web site or blog, which — surprise, most often holds a nice drive-by malware infection for anyone gullible enough to end up there.

The lesson of the story is — never trust what men tell you online. Either that or — if he seems to good to be true he probably is (a malware program). Or how about — try interacting with real humans, it just might be safer than trying to deal with them over the Web. Maybe. PC Tools predicts that CyberLover will wash up on U.S. shores by early 2008. Keep a nose out for the smell of cheap cologne.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Russian State TV Advertising on Taxi TV in New York City

One of the more arresting 30-second spots [on newly installed TV monitors in city taxis, shown above] is an enigmatic ad for a pro-Kremlin Web site, russiatoday.ru, and magazine, Russia Today; it offers a surprising spin on the proverbial Butterfly Effect: a soccer ball kicked through a scientist’s window eventually results in a handsome New Russian couple waiting impatiently on a snow-covered tarmac for a private jet that fails to arrive. The tag line, “Dare to Be Different,” doesn’t explain much, but it does convey a Putinesque disdain for Western efficiency.

– The New York Times, December 15th

And here’s a Russia Today billboard (via a local LR reader) from inside the Washington DC subway:

If you can figure out what their point is, you’re a better man than we are, Gunga Din.

Of course, we mustn’t forget about their Stalin campaign:

Russia is really an impressive place, isn’t it? How can they but rule the world?

Classic Emperor’s New Clothes stuff. Just as in Soviet times the whole world is laughing uproariously at Russia, but because Putin has cut the country off from the flow of real information, just as in Soviet times nobody knows it.

It’s beyond pathetic.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !