While we are waiting for the final results of the so called election to a new Russian parliament I have been reading Anders Aslund’s important book Russia’s Capitalist Revolution: Why Market Reform Succeeded and Democracy Failed. It may be surprising that the Russians so easily seem to be giving up their hard gained freedom in the nineties, but the fact of the matter is that President Putin is presiding over an economic boom comparable to what Germany and Japan experienced after World War II.
The Kremlin has been intimidating the media, state controlled TV is a propaganda tool for Putin and NGO’s critical of the government have been harrassed, corruption is worse than ever, so how can a President who deliberately has limited the freedom of Russians be so popular?
Of course, Putin wouldn’t get this kind of support, had the free media, NGO’s and the opposition had the opportunity to challenge him and his government in the news and parliament. But still, the growth of the economy is an important factor, though not the only one.
Aslund convincingly argues that Putin is in fact benefiting from the policies of the reformers after the fall of the Soviet Union. They were the ones who liberalized the Russian economy and instituted private ownership. Putin is strutting in borrowed plumes.
Here are some figues indicating the expansion of the economy under Putin: Since 1999 average growth has been 6.9 percent a year, and it is now the 10th biggest economy in the world. When Putin moved into the Kremlin eight years ago GDP amounted to close to 200 billion dollars, now it’s five times bigger, more than 1.000 billion, and that means that Russia’s GPD per capita is four times bigger than China’s. The number of private enterprises increases 7 percent every year, and has reached 9 million, which according to Aslund is comparable to the figures of Western Europe per capita.
In 2003 Goldman Sachs published a much-talked paper projecting that Russia’s GDP by 2028 would overtake Germany’s and become the fifth biggest economy in the world after the US, China, Japan and India. That was before the current oil boom that has boosted the Russian economy further, though it would be a mistake to think that oil is the only factor behind the Russian boom. If the oil price stay at 50 dollars per barrel (right now it’s close to 100 dollars), Russia would become the fifth biggest economy in the world before 2020.
This begs the question: How come the Russians are getting better and better off and at the same time freedom is decreasing? Usually it’s the other way round. Economic growth and well-being increases the pressure for democracy. Aslund identifies a growing tension between Putin’s authoritarian regime and the booming econnomy and concludes:
”Russia is simply too rich, too economically pluralist, too educated, and too open to be so authoritarian. This contradiction between an increasingly obsolete political system and a swiftly modernizing economy and society is likely to be untenable even in the medium term. No modern society can function without unbiased information of checks and balances. Putin cannot make decisions of high quality about everything after having abolished all feed-back and concentrated so much decision making to himself. His regime is too rigid and centralized to handle crises, which always occur in Russia. Therefore, it can hardly be very stable.”
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Natalia:Why don’t accept the positive changes in Russia? Russians remember how it was under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. There were decades of chaos, and Russia was week. Western media were happy: cold war was over, enemy is dead..
Dec 2, 2007 - 11:19 pm OmegaPaladin:But remember: Russia is not enemy, Russia just has own national interests.
Don’t describe majority of Russians as helpless and abused now: they were under Yeltsyn. Russians are feeling much better now and not only financially. Leave Russians alone, they don’t trust yours motives and need the time to develop own kind of society.
They don’t need any help and good advice from the West. Think about own problems instead: there are a lot of them…
Well, Natalia, Putin is plenty interested in using the USA as a excuse for all kinds of problems. He’s working with our enemies in Iran, trying to rebuild the old Soviet Empire. (Make no mistake - the USSR was our enemy in the Cold War. Russians stood ready to turn me into radioactive dust. No longer having that threat was something to cheer about.)
We can’t just leave Putin alone. We have common enemies in the irhabi terrorists, and we could work together against them. If Putin wants to bring back the USSR and the Cold War, he’s going to make us his enemies .
Dec 3, 2007 - 8:45 am Marian Kechlibar:Privyet Natalia,
this is one of your Slavic brethren speaking, from Prague.
The main trouble that the EU currently has with Mr. Putin, IMHO, is his complicated, but rather protectionist stance towards Iran’s mad mullah group.
Frankly, I do not understand his position at all. Russia has had its fair share of trouble with jihadists in Caucausus, and those days are definitely not over yet. If they let Iran develop nuclear weapons, Iranian clerics will not respond with friendship and gratitude towards “the infidels”. They will repay you by financing and supporting your Islamist enemies in the whole region.
Try imagining Azerbaijan as a fundamentalist regime - it is not now, but Iran in 1978 was neither. How would the Russians like nuclear-armed Jihadis at the Caspian?
I think Putin underestimates the threat from Islam and overestimates the “threat” from the West.
Dec 3, 2007 - 10:33 am Natalia:Welcome to “Pajamas universe”!
Dec 3, 2007 - 2:24 pm Marian Kechlibar:Busy destroying potential enemies and …creating a lot of new!
The result of USA pressure on Iran was Iranian revolution. People in Russia do not want more revolution and shock therapy - they want peace and evolution.
Iran needs nuclear energy to support country’s huge population. They don’t have technology to develop the weapons. It can take years from now, and many things can happen. USA and Russia have to work together to provide better control and take both Pakistan and Israel under control.
By the way, America, congratulation for bringing “democracy” to Iraq.
Natalia,
I live under impression that the main result for Shah’s demise was his own crazy internal policies like resettling people “en masse” in the name of his “development program”, and strong inflation as a result of over-the-top investment. This alienated the population from him, and his own soldiers refused to fight for him during that revolution.
However, the revolution was not Islamic in the origin. The Islamists led by Khomeini took advantage and massacred the rest of the revolutionary crowd. I believe we can safely say that this outcome was result of USA inaction.
I understand the need of Iran to provide energy for the people. However, given the history of the affair so far, I do not exactly believe that they do not look for nuclear weapons too. And quite a lot of the technology can be bought or stolen/spied, as it happened several times during this century. Which could turn “years from now” to a considerably lower scale.
Dec 3, 2007 - 3:10 pm OmegaPaladin:Natalia,
Russia and the US both have used nuclear energy to the great benefit of their people. Both your lights and mine (in Chicago, IL, USA) are likely powered by nuclear energy. I am a big proponent of peaceful nuclear energy, especially in rising countries like India.
The problem is that Iran is not interested in running a nuclear energy program. They don’t have the resources to support a native enrichment program for long, and yet they are building one. Enrichment is expensive - even countries like the US and Russia only have one or two plants. If they wanted a civil program, they could drop the enrichment and buy reactor grade uranium from Russia. (We get a lot of our reactor fuel from you)
They want to build a bomb, Natalia. What if the irhabi terrorists decide to buy one from them? They might think that hitting Moscow or St. Petersburg is a good idea.
The terrorists are out for both of heads. Together, we could make them irrelevant and crush them.
Dec 4, 2007 - 2:50 am Natalia:I am not naive. If we should follow your logic, vi have to gå ahead now with North Korea and Pakistan. The list can be long. The problem is that the role of USA in the world now is the most provokative of all other countries. The solution is not creating new unstabilities in the region. The best functioning weapons control agreements and tools was created paradoksalt enough with USSR. Russia and USA are the most civilized countries in this matter. Let’s use this experience more. By the way, CNN’s coverage of Russia was very bad: ignorant anti-russian propaganda. Ruusia didn’t choose any ideology or Putin as Tsar, but stability and economical growth, which benefit not only few, but whole population and is the most important factor for developing democracy.
Dec 4, 2007 - 10:44 am Marian Kechlibar:Neocons have good days in America: very disappoitning.
Natalia,
let us forget for a moment about labels like “neocons” (I am not one), and, instead of the ideology, concentrate on Iran and study the thing a bit. Comparisons with N.Korea and Pakistan are spectacular, but shallow. The countries are very different.
As I see it, the problem with Iranian mullahs is that some of them - not all - are religious lunatics who genuinely believe in return of the 12th mahdi.
Conservative Khamenei is very ill, almost dead. Once he dies, the younger ayatollahs will struggle for power.
The modernist wing represented by Khatami is marginalized and does not stand a chance. The rivaling factions are that of Rafsanjani and Mesbah Yezdi.
Rafsanjani is a classical maffioso crook, and thus, while having inclinations toward blackmail, could be probably reasoned with: he definitely likes power here in this world than 72 virgins in the paradise. He will not risk real war with the USA or anyone else, unless he has a good chance of winning.
On the other pole is the ultra-fanatic Mesbah Yezdi (Ahmadinejad is his protege). This guy is genuinely nuts. This is the one guy whom even Khomeini considered too radical. He is a follower of the teaching that coming of the 12th Mahdi can be hastened by enough havoc on the Earth. The more I learn about him, the less I wish to see the trigger of a nuke in his hand. This guy is fully immersed in his vision of the afterworld.
Does not this trouble you?
Dec 4, 2007 - 11:10 am