ONLY THE WEST IS SURPRISED AT THE POPULARITY OF THE TWO:

Can Russia meld order with the freedom it briefly savoured? (News Statesm,an, 4/30/07)

As Boris Yeltsin is laid to rest, to what extent can the excesses of his period be seen as responsible for the clampdown that has followed? To what extent could Russia have followed a different, more gradual course out of communism? The two questions are interlinked. They tend to be posed by many Russians now in order to elicit a derogatory response to the late president and his record. Yeltsin allowed a nation's assets to fall into the hands of the largest modern-day kleptocracy. That much is undeniable. But perhaps those most at fault were the foreign advisers who took over the Kremlin, pursuing "shock therapy" privatisation without heed to the peculiarities of the country in which they were experimenting. They not only failed to appreciate the need to build a new form of civil society first, but sent millions of Russians into abject poverty. They undermined confidence in western economic and political remedies.

And yet, it is still not clear whether the outcome would have been significantly better if a more wary path had been pursued. Such were the structures of the former USSR that it was almost inevitable that those who enjoyed political power would seek to grab for themselves and their friends the riches of a newly marketised economy. Putin has restored a semblance of order to economic dealings, but this is superficial. The corruption and cronyism that reached a peak in Yeltsin's second term have simply become more discreet.

Despite the surprisingly fond farewell for Yeltsin, most of what he built is being systematically dismantled by his successor. A crusading press has withered. Parliament and television stations have regained their puppet status and dissent is again a parlous occupation. The deaths of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko attest to that. Other journalists and activists have given in to threats and silenced themselves. Those who do not, such as Garry Kasparov's "Other Russia" group, meet violence from police even where their rallies have been notionally sanctioned by city authorities. Those who wish to make money keep their heads down.

Putin is more confident than he was three years ago. He presides over not a return to the dictatorship of Soviet communism but a form of Latin American autocracy. Only the most outspoken get into trouble. Meanwhile, rich Russians go skiing and eat sushi, and the poor seek to make ends meet. (At least state salaries are being paid now.) It was not wrong for western leaders to seek to woo Putin when he came to power in 2000. It is right that they continue to engage with him, albeit more cautiously. Attention will soon turn to the next succession when the incumbent's two-term tenure runs out in 2008. Will Putin do what Yeltsin did and go quietly? The prospects are not encouraging.

The big question in Russia is unchanged: are the autocrats following the Pinochet model or just content to run a banana republic?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 26, 2007 7:17 AM