FBIS3-37947
"drsov038__s94001"
FBIS-SOV-94-038-S
Document Type:Daily Report
25 February 1994
RUSSIAN NATIONAL SECURITY CONCEPT FOR 1994
Russian National Security Concept for 1994
PM2402070194 Moscow OBOZREVATEL-OBSERVER Special Supplement
in Russian 1993 (signed to press 14 Dec 93) pp 3-173
PM2402070194
Moscow OBOZREVATEL-OBSERVER Special Supplement
in Russian 1993 (signed to press 14 Dec 93) pp 3-173
Language: Russian
Article Type:BFN
[Table of Contents and select chapters from special
supplement of journal OBOZREVATEL-OBSERVER: "National Security:
Russia in 1994"]
[Text] Table of Contents
Summary of the special supplement in English [not
transcribed] 4
List of subscribers of the OBOZREVATEL-OBSERVER information
and analysis journal [not translated]
12
To the Reader
17
National Security: Russia in 1994
I. Preservation of Civil Peace, of an Integral and
Independent Russian State
1. Preservation of Civil Peace and Accord
23
2. Improvement of the Federal Structure, Prevention of
Regional Fragmentation
26
3. Elimination of the Seats of Interethnic Conflicts
31
4. Russia Within the System of Newly Independent States
37
5. Ways to Form a Civil Society
41
6. The Status of Crime and Russia's Security
44
II. Formation of Genuine Spiritual Principles and Values of
the Russian People
1. Need for a National Idea
49
2. The Role of Science. Russia's Scientific and
Technical Priorities
52
3. Guidelines for Politicians in the Education Sphere
57
4. Culture in Russia
60
5. The Growing Role of the Orthodox Church
64
III. Stabilization of the Socioeconomic Situation in the
Country
1. Stabilization and Recovery of the Economy
71
2. Structural Reorganization of Russia's Economy
74
3. Agrarian Reform
80
4. The Stabilization of Finances
82
5. Social Policy
89
6. Toward Realism in Economic Policy
92
IV. Protection of the Interests of Russian-Speaking
Population
1. The Contemporary Status of Russians
95
2. Political Aspects
100
3. Toward Integration Via Coordination
101
4. Problems of Migration
102
5. Problems of Russia's Economic Mutual Relations with
CIS Countries 107
V. The Creation of Favorable International Conditions for
the Implementation of Reforms in Russia
1. Existing Realities
109
2. National Interests
112
3. Foreign Policy
114
4. Threats to State Stability and Security. Measures for
Their Neutralization
118
5. Disarmament Problems
124
6. The Need To Improve the Mechanisms for Managing
Military Organizational Development
128
Challenges and Potentials
130
Appendix I. Tables of Contents of the journal OBOZREVATEL
for 1993 [not translated]
137
Appendix II. RAU-Corporation in 1993 [from the
Corporation's annual report [not translated]
163
To the Reader
The Federal Assembly is beginning its work at a crucial and
dramatic period of Russia's history. The decisions to be
adopted by the legislative and executive organs of power will,
to a large extent, determine not only Russia's future but also
whether we will remain plunged into crisis or whether a slow and
painful recovery will begin -- this is the question. Let us
recall that 1992 has gone down in Russia's history as the year
when mortality rate exceeded birth rate for the first time ever
in peacetime. The situation deteriorated still further during
the first nine months of 1993 -- deaths have already exceeded
births by 500,000. The existence and survival of the
nation itself is in jeopardy.
Before a cure can be started, it is necessary to arrive at
an
accurate diagnosis, in other words to appraise soberly and
without prejudice the situation in which the country finds
itself. To understand the causes of such tragic events. It is
necessary to abandon the habit of making analysis and appraisal
fit in with the goals pursued by different political parties.
The interests of the country and of the people as a
whole must, at long last, come to the foreground in deed
and not just in words.
On this basis it will become possible to take the path
toward
accord between different political forces. After all, due to
the existing split, it is impossible to elaborate a correct
policy and pool efforts to implement a joint program for
extrication from the crisis.
The following must be one of the main principles of state
policy at this stage: Protection of the country's national
interests on the basis of science, pragmatism, and national
accord.
The authors' collective does not in any way claim that the
material it offers is consummate or complete. We have attempted
to identify approaches toward the solution of problems. Some of
them are only outlined in the text. The important point is that
those in whom the right to make decisions is vested should be
given an opportunity to choose from the broadest possible
range of substantiated proposals.
Unfortunately, today there are frequent occasions when
incorrect and wrong decisions are not only proposed but are also
adopted, with the consequence that the state and society suffer
afterwards. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to
encourage by all possible means the elaboration of various
drafts and options for political decisions by independent
experts and submit them for broad discussion.
Such an approach is especially important when working on the
complex problems of the state's security and development
strategy since many important questions have hitherto been
studied and practically resolved in isolation, and this has
caused and continues to cause enormous harm. It would seem, for
example, that the correct decision to attain parity with the
NATO countries has resulted in a sharp weakening of economic
security. The pursuit of gross indicators and the lack of a
systematic and intelligent concept of the habitat have produced
ecological disasters with the most serious impact on the
biosphere as a result of anthropogenic activity (Chernobyl,
territories in the Far North, and virtually all industrial
regions).
All this was apparently undertaken for the sake of the
security of the country as a whole, although it had a negative
effect on it, let alone the irrational expenditure of vast
quantities of material resources.
Look at the latest examples. While talking about conversion,
we have in reality ruined the military-industrial complex,
withdrawn from the world arms markets, and are now incurring
huge foreign currency losses because the market has been
captured by the Western countries.
To curb inflation.... How could anyone object to this? But
the methods used to implement this concept have become one of
the factors paralyzing the economy, which has led to strikes and
the shutdown of enterprises with all the ensuing consequences.
Neither the president, nor the Federal Assembly, nor the
government, nor any other state organ, comprising the most
competent and experienced people, could elaborate in depth and
comprehensively consider and adopt substantiated decisions on
questions of state security unless the sessions of these organs
are preceded by a thorough scientific elaboration of the
problems under consideration.
There is also a need for consultations with scientific
institutions and leading scientists and specialists. A series
of questions also require international cooperation, because in
our time it is impossible to contain the elaboration of security
problems only within the national framework.
History has proved that it is impossible to achieve
security for the country and peace and tranquillity for its
citizens by military force alone. This is easy to comprehend if
the term "security" is extrapolated to the individual, the
nation (the people, the state), and the international community.
A nation can achieve tranquility and function normally only
if it is confident that it will not be subjected to devastation
by war and that it will not die out from an AIDS epidemic or as
a result of an ecological crisis; that its economy will undergo
stable development and will not only save the country from
famine and ruin but will also prevent any potential aggressor's
illusions about the likelihood of winning a war against it; that
a developed system of legislation and legality will protect the
nation from unbridled crime and will ensure the harmony of the
interests of all strata of society, of all peoples of Russia,
and of each individual.
In this special supplement to the RAU Corporation's
information and analysis weekly OBOZREVATEL-OBSERVER, experts
from centers and authors of the journal offer their
own alternative strategy for Russia's extrication from the
crisis. It is meant for people elaborating and adopting
political decisions or actively participating in their
preparation. Primarily for deputies of Russia's Federal
Assembly. Thus, this supplement is a concept of Russia's
development in 1994 and a kind of digest of ideas and materials
by the Corporation's creative collectives.
With most profound respect for our subscribers, readers, and
opponents,
[Signed] Doctor of Historical Sciences A. Podberezkin, RAU
Corporation president and academician of the Russian Academy of
Natural Sciences
National Security: Russia in 1994
Today, more than ever before, we need a critical analysis of
the path we have traversed and a clear objective for society's
further development. After all, we find ourselves at an
historical crossroad: There is no turning back, but we still
have to choose the new road. Within a very brief period of
time, the country has moved from one historic period to another:
-- there has been a radical change of state structure;
-- an end has been put in Russia to the previous political
system, which was underpinned by the CPSU's monopoly of power
and ideology;
-- a headlong change is under way in the correlation of
forms
of ownership in Russia and, correspondingly, in the entire
system of social interrelations;
-- there is a growing accumulation of interethnic
contradictions within Russia and of problems with former USSR
republics which are now sovereign states;
-- there has been a fundamental change in Russia's position
in the world community and in its mutual relations with foreign
states.
In this context it is necessary to clearly define the
current
and long-term Russian national interests which correspond with
the interests of individual citizens and of society as a whole.
It is necessary to highlight those on which the very existence
of our state depends.
In our view, the main point today is to prevent the
weakening
and collapse of the Russian State. But how is this to be
avoided?
Having defined the priorities, it would be expedient to
elaborate a program of reforms in the interests of society as a
whole and not in the interests of individual groups. This
program will obviously be nationwide. It must be comrehensible,
realistic, and pragmatic, it must not be burdened by any
political bias. Citizens have the right, and even the duty, to
know what kind of "bright" future they are offered, how will
reforms be implemented, and how long they will take. They are
fully entitled not only to ask questions about all this but also
to altogether disagree with the proposed program and ultimately
to demand an account of the government's activity.
The way to national accord must be sought on the basis of
respect for the individual and each citizen's rights regardles
of party, religious, or national affiliation.
What we need today is a government capable of finding a way
out of the crisis. Only a program geared to the needs of the
majority of the population will enjoy the population's support.
This is also the only way to achieve the consolidation of all
progressive forces. It is necessary to curb inflation, restore
confidence in the ruble, and create a normally functioning
financial-state mechanism geared to support for producers rather
than for dealers.
How do we propose to begin?
FIRST, to abandon the excesses of political struggle and to
strengthen legality, law and order, and elementary executive
discipline without which any power is doomed to anarchy, in
other words to strengthen the state.
SECOND, to undertake a series of measures to improve living
conditions for the Russian Federation's citizens, and primarily
for the least well-off section -- pensioners, children, the
sick, and those unable to work.
THIRD, to uphold Russia's unity and its economic and
political independence.
FOURTH, to revive Russia's spiritual potential.
THE MAIN THREAT is the weakening of power and statehood. Any
weakening of any of the branches of power means the weakening of
power and statehood as a whole. It is extremely shortsighted to
sow the branch on which you are perched. It would be much wiser
to reciprocally strengthen the representative, executive, and
judicial branches of power.
We offer for your attention an analysis of the situation and
a package of measures to strengthen the state.
Section I: I. Preservation of Civil Peace, of an Integral
and Independent Russian State
1. Preservation of Civil Peace and Accord
Armed conflicts and local wars are increasingly often waged
along Russia's borders. The fatherland is on the threshold of a
war which could begin either on its borders or beyond them. It
has, in fact, already begun. Therefore, the main
task today is to prevent its escalation into all-out
war. For this purpose we need primarily national
unity and accord. No matter how the situation in the
country may develop, it is impermissible to make the state
dependent on "victory" by different views or political forces.
Politicians and their ambitions, even the most outstanding
ones, come and go, but Russia lives on. Any political victory
would turn into defeat if a blow is dealt on statehood and
society slides toward confrontation.
It is impossible to achieve stability and accord in society
unless an end is put to the division into "ours" and "theirs,"
into "correct" and "guilty." There is already widespread use of
the terminomoly and methodology of psychological warfare, which
are used during preparations for the conduct of combat
operations against opponents who will have to be sooner or later
destroyed. The division of citizens into "victors" and
"vanquished" is a state crime, because it leads directly to
civil war.
In order to avoid this and halt this movement toward direct
confrontation, leading politicians should be made to,
first, abandon personal (party) interests
in the conduct of affairs and promote state interests
to the foreground. Second, to find within themselves
the courage to cease the endless search for "enemies" and
declare the responsibility and repentance of all for
the catastrophe which has befallen Russia. Our history shows
that precisely this spiritual-moral approach has always
underpinned Russia's extrication from crisis.
In this context it is necessary to impose a direct
legislative ban on the propaganda of enmity equating
it with calls for civil war, and introducing penalties for
the publication of unverified information detrimental
to the state and to civil peace (but without preventing
journalists engaging in criticism based on facts).
Democracy and its principles must become a means for
strengthening rather than weakening the state.
Not a single political force can or should claim
to be absolutely correct, and consequently to exercise absolute
power. It is necessary to consolidate all forces in society
without dividing them into "reds," "whites," "browns," and so
on. This approach has proved pernicious for our statehood over
the last few decades.
The economic chaos today has been compounded by interethnic
conflicts, the collapse of moral foundations and cultural
heritage, and finally the crisis of political power.
Instead of a middle class which, in all civilized societies,
comprises the scientific, technical, and creative
intelligentsia, skilled workers, and entrepreneurs, we have
created a minute privileged stratum of dealers while the
remaining strata are undergoing headlong lumpenization. At no
time and in no place has this path ever created a reliable
support for democracy and state power in society. It is
paradoxical but for many years on end the state has
pursued an antistate policy aimed at the disintegration and
elimination of its most important institutions: the Army,
national domestic policy, and the state security system.
The most acute problems facing the state today are:
a) to prevent a civil war; b) to strengthen
the state institutions; c) to prevent Russia's
collapse; d) to overcome the socioeconomic crisis and
save the nation; e) to preserve science, culture, and
education.
Cadres pose an especially acute problem. When promoting
people to the levers of state administration, society envisages
a system of measures to train administrative cadres. All over
the world (including prerevolutionary Russia), any citizen who
wishes to become a professional politician has to go through the
school of upbringing, education, and practice before he is
allowed access to political activity in local organs of power.
In order to be launched into state-level orbit, the candidate
has to climb a long ladder of practical work and training. In
the United States, before a citizen can hold prominent office,
he is polished in a prestigious university and in the course of
work abroad, in the ministries (including the State Department
and the CIA) or party apparatus, in Congress, and so on. The
result is a skilled functionary meeting the needs of his
society's ruling circles, but even here mistakes cannot be
avoided.
The polarization of political forces and their growing
confrontation (taking the most uncivilized forms in Russia) not
only did not end with the elimination of the Russian Federation
Supreme Soviet, but are actually intensifying. The
election campaign considerably stimulated this
process. Consequently, it is probable that one section of
the ruling elite will succeed in crystallizing into a clearly
defined party structure which will attempt to establish control
first over the government and then over the president, de
facto reviving the one-party political system. The
accession of such a party to power will, in turn, inevitably
lead first to a clash between the president and the Federal
Assembly, and then to a leadership struggle within the ruling
party itself. Unfortunately, the history of the USSR and the
CPSU offers us numerous tragic examples of such development of
events.
In this context, from the state's point of view, there is
need for measures for legislative and political regulation
of party activity, making provision for temporary
suspension of the activity of all parties and
sociopolitical organizations in the event that the nature of
their political activity becomes damaging to the state's
security.
This kind of decision -- and this is of fundamental
importance -- must be made and monitored by the supreme organs
of state power subject to one immutable condition:
Political decisions must under no circumstances
become the prerogative of executive and monitoring organs
like the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs], the Ministry of
Security, the Prosecutor's Office, and so on. In our view, the
ideal authority to make such decisions would be the
judiciary.
The real strengthening of the aithority and potential of
the judiciary must become a priority task in Russia's
state building.
Basing our analysis on the supreme interests of the state
and
the nation, we have concluded that firm authority is
needed today. The most effective, indisputable, and
bloodless form for Russia could be an interim presidential rule
monitored by the Federal Assembly.
If we were to leave aside political bias and the ambitions
of
political leaders and forces desiring to make capital out of
discord in Russia, we are confident that many of our fellow
citizens would agree: Even an imperfect leader of the nation is
better than a group of political leaders looking primarily after
their own interests and corrupt elements straining to come to
power.
During the most difficult times in Russia's history (feudal
strife, invasions, the Time of Troubles), the country emerged
victorious having mobilized all its resources and the
spiritual potential of the masses under a single leader's
leadership. The Soviet era was no exception, seeing that
Stalin's dictatorship was objectively a positive factor of
victory in World War II and of the country's reemergence from
the ruins.
The press occasionally writes that Russia today feels not
only the urgent need but even the inevitability of the
appearance of an authoritarian regime capable of extricating the
country from the crisis.
Some people assume that Russia has already taken this path
and therefore the question is not how to avoid a transition to
authoritarianism but to choose its most acceptable form
and the method for transition. We, it is said, have
already diverged from the possible forms and norms of a
developed democratic state in the transition period. It is
therefore necessary to accept this fact as an objectively
existing reality and, second, to try and find a method --
peaceful and the one most acceptable for the state -- of
transition to one of the more preferable forms of
authoritarianism.
This assumes that new qualities will be demanded of the
representative of the authoritarian form of rule: Leader of the
nation rather than of a party; staunch defender of the state and
its interests rather than leader of reformers; a builder rather
than a destroyer, in other words a major revision of the
priorities and values which have been dominant in the last few
years.
The list of these character qualities could be logically
extended to include a serious change in the disposition of
political forces: The transformation of recent allies and
friends into political opponents and the obverse -- the
attraction of broad strata of professionals and specialists not
committed to any one political party or movement.
It may happen that, instead of authoritarianism, we could
end
up with incessant struggle, intrigues by different groupings,
parties, and juntas, and attempted coups -- with the State and
the Nation at stake. Any such struggle, which has become an
accepted form of existence for these leaders and a part of their
essence, will inevitably and for a long time to come
hinder and delay the stabilization of the situation in the
country and will weaken our might.
The country's earliest possible extrication from the crisis
and the gradual formation of durable democratic foundations of a
civil society are important for Russia because real democracy is
possible only in a society where there are no mortal
threats against the State and the Nation.
2. Improvement of the Federal Structure, Prevention of
Regional Fragmentation
What should Russia be like following the disappearance of
the
superpower -- the Soviet Union -- from the world map? Its
former Constitution calls it the Russian Federation. But is
this really true?
A genuine federation is possible only when two or
several states are united and, as a rule, it is based on
lasting integration without the right to "secede." The autonomy
of a union state's components is guaranteed insofar as it does
not threaten the state's unity. Precisely this principle was
used in forming the majority of federal states existing today:
the United States, Switzerland, Canada, Germany.
True enough, some other states also style themselves as
federations -- Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, India, and
Spain, for example. Essentially, however, they are unitary
states with a certain amount of autonomy for their provinces --
pseudofederations in the classic sense of the word. World
experience has shown that a durable federal state is possible
only when it is formed by autonomous states keen to
unite by dint of various vitally important reasons. More
recent historical examples already prove that any attempts to
create a federation out of immature national and territorial
formations inevitable engender instability and disintegration,
which swiftly lead to the collapse of newly formed states or the
formation of a unitary state.
The Soviet Union was a federation only in name, proclaimed
by
its Constitution, but in essence was, in our view, a typical
pseudofederation. It is well known that a treaty between a
series of republics was concluded in 1922. But, in the strict
juridical and legal sense, not a single one of the components
agreeing to the union was a state.
As for the RSFSR [Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic]
as one of the contracting parties to the creation of the USSR,
from the very beginning it was also a pseudofederation -- both
in form and in its inner composition.
The conclusion of the Federation Treaty in its present form
did not solve the problem, either. With whom did the Federation
components conclude the treaty? With the federal state
structures, to be precise. If they represent a single state, it
emerges that the Russians -- its numerically largest people,
comprising more than 80 percent of the population -- are
dispersed among the Federation components since their own
statehood is not even mentioned. Furthermore, Tatarstan and the
Chechen Republic did not sign the Federation Treaty, while the
stance of a series of republics and regions as regards the
distribution of powers is threatening the Russian Federation's
unity. It is fair to ask: Is the newly emerging Russia not a
worse variation of the same old pseudofederation?
It has to be objectively noted that, ever since the collapse
of the Russian Empire, the ethnic Russians have been
gradually losing their statehood.
This is the fundamental question of our community's
development: In view of all that has been said above, will
Russia be able to become a genuine federal state?
The fatherland's history contains several examples of
attempts to impose a federal unification of territories --
during the Kievan period right until the invasion by the Golden
Horde, during the Suzdal-Muscovy period, during the Time of
Troubles, and in 1917 right after the February Revolution.
It is, of course, possible today to blame the Soviet power
for failing to take everything into consideration when forming
the sovereign republics, but the main point is that many
peoples acquired or restored their statehood precisely thanks to
the Soviet power.
The pull toward integration and unity of the peoples of both
Russia and the former USSR stems from numerous factors. The
territory which they inhabit -- Eurasia. Throughout the many
centuries of their existence, these peoples have on many
occasions united within state formations and have produced
unique cultures and single spiritual areas. They perceive
Eurasia as their "motherland-continent" whose fate is
inseparable from the fate of each one of its peoples.
Experience shows that whenever the Eurasian ethnic groups have
failed to reach accord, their lands have become easy prey for
aggressors. The struggle for Eurasia's repartition could
disrupt the world geopolitical equilibrium and cause a global
catastrophe.
Another common feature of Russia's peoples is the highly
polyetnnic nature of all newly formed states. Only six of the
multitude of Russian peoples claim more than 50 percent of
indigenous population in their republics (the Chuvash account
for 69 percent, the Tuvinians for 64 percent, the Komi-Permyak
for 60 percent, the Chechen for 58 percent, the Buryat in
Aga-Buryat Autonomous Okrug for 54 percent, and the Ossetians
for 53 percent). The average "indigenous population" in all
Russian Federation republics is 32 percent, and even less --
10.5 percent -- in autonomous okrugs. It is simply impossible
to divide all this into some sort of state formations. The
following conclusion suggests itself: Russia's peoples are
destined to live in one state -- federal in spirit and form.
So, what are the ways to solve the national-state
question in Russia? There are two main dangers apparent in
the possible development of nationality processes today. The
first is the uncontrolled explosion of Russian nationalism
as a natural defensive reaction to the threat of Russia's
fragmentation and to the insult of national dignity, taking
the form of the Russophobia and chauvinism typical of some
former Union republics and of individual national regions in
Russia itself. But the establishment of nationalist
dictatorships is no solution. The lamentable experience of such
dictatorships and regimes in a series of states which emerged on
the territory of the USSR offers convincing proof of this.
Territorial and state collapse is, as a rule, the price that
has to be paid for the triumph of "national ideas."
The second danger lies in the attempts to turn Russia back
to
its prerevolution state structure, dividing it into guberniyas.
In practical terms, this would mean the forced colonization of
national republics. The rights which non-Russian peoples have
acquired can no longer be withdrawn or curtailed without
tragic consequences for them and for the Russian nation.
Russian or any other nationalism will not only lead inevitably
to the destruction of Russia's integrity but will also render
the statehood of these very peoples just a pipedream.
The ideal way to a genuine federal state is to conclude
a full-blooded federation treaty between the
republics.
Russia's krays and oblasts as Federation components
must enjoy equal rights with the republics, with a
possible subsequent establishment of new integrational
formations (guberniyas, laender). The more extensive the level
of self-government, the more lasting will be the real
integration between Federation components, including the
"Russian regions."
The comprehensivess of this integration eliminates the
problem of the Russian nation's possible "self-dismemberment" in
the event that krays and oblasts are elevated to the level of
republics. Thus, federalism could be founded simultaneously on
the national-state, national-territorial, and territorial
principles, which would be most in line with Russia's specific
features. There is need to constitutionally enshrine the rights
of national groups and the guarantees of cultural autonomy.
In this process it will be important to sensibly
distribute powers between central and local organs of power and
administration.
Since the two organs of power -- parliament and government
--
combine all the original features of a multinational state in
the persons of deputies and members of the government, they
would appear to personify to a large extent the components of
the Federation and their peoples, and then the center's
authoritarianism within the limit of its powers would be
accepted with understanding.
On the other hand, authoritarianism in the form of a
presidential republic in Russia's specific conditions could
spark off conflicts which would be diffitul to overcome and, in
the event of the adoption of decisions which may be
disadvantageous for some of its components, it may even prompt
national agitation and protest.
Nonetheless, experience shows that, at critical
moments in history, authoritarianism as a temporary
measure may be necessary and, furthermore, justified.
The formation of a genuinely federal Russian state will
offer
an opportunity to revive the largely lost ties with nearby
foreign countries. The timing and extent of this new
rapprochement of peoples from the former USSR will depend
primarily on Russia's stability and prosperity. This will
happen sooner or later and, when it does, the Eurasian continent
will see the emergence of a new community of free peoples and
states, qualitatively different from all others in the past,
mainly due to the genuine federal principle underpinning its
building.
If oblasts, even enlarged ones (Ural Republic, Far East
Republic, and so on), were to be given the right to have their
own parliaments, constitutions, embassies, and so on, this would
run contrary to both international experience and common sense.
Any sovereignization of administrative oblasts in today's
conditions will lead to the Federation's transformation into a
confederation. In light of the current weakening of power, this
would be the quickest way to the state's collapse with all the
ensuing economic and social consequences which would be
extremely serious for all. Evidence of this can be seen in
the consequences of the Soviet Union's collapse.
A strengthening of separatism is also possible even if
components do not formally secede from the Federation, something
which can already be noticed today.
What attitude should be taken toward the striving of the
leaderships of some sovereign republics to take advantage of the
federal state's weakening so as to expand their rights still
further and acquire a special status in the Federation,
something like "associate" members?
Practice has convincingly confirmed that any excessive
expansion of components' rights leads to a weakening, and
even the collapse, of the federation. Cases of secession
from the federation by joint accord of all interested sides are
isolated (the State of Singapore from Malaysia). Other
attempted secessions have usually been put down by force (the
Sonderbund in Switzerland, the southern states in the United
States, Biafra in Nigeria, and so on) and, even if they did
succeed on occasion, this was the result of military operations
against the federation (the separation of Bangladesh from
Pakistan in 1970). Naturally, this way to preserve the state's
unity is unacceptable to us.
The states, laender, or provinces comprising federations
abroad usually exercise only the rights which have been
either vested in them by the central power or enshrined in the
constitution on the basis of agreement between the
components. There is a tendency toward curtailing the
scope of these rights. They do not enjoy independence in
international affairs. There are numerous instances when
decisions by the supreme courts of such federations directly
indicate that their components are not sovereign (Canada,
Australia). In Nigeria, and with a view to blocking any ethnic
separatism, the states' territory has been reshaped in such a
way as to give them a nationally heterogeneous population mix.
Neither the Constitution nor the Federation Treaty of the
Russian Federation makes provision for the components' right to
secede from the Federation, and self-determination is exercised
within the framework of a federal state which is not bound to
unconditionally grant to a republic's population the right to
separate, even if such a demand has been backed by the majority
of the population in a referendum. Any such referendum is
unlawful, and its results can have only a political, not a legal
significance.
The threats to secede from the Federation which can be heard
every now and again run contrary to both the Constitution and
the Federation Treaty, therefore they have no legal effect, and
-- in our view -- ought to be resolutely cut short.
Bearing in mind the vast advantages which the republics have
already gained thanks to their membership of the Russian
Federation, their leaders ought to abandon their attempts
to further expand their rights to the point which is tantamount
to secession, while the legitimate rights of republics and
oblasts ought to be covered by additional treaties with the
Federation. The force of law is better than the law of force --
the law enabling its use.
The extent of Federation components' rights is determined
not through barter or some sort of deal resulting in their
curtailment or expansion. It is clearly predetermined by
the demands stemming from the principle of self-determination:
It is impermissible to expand the rights of components at the
expense of the interests of other nations and all peoples of the
Federation, which also enjoy these rights.
The principle of self-determination protects the interests
of
all peoples and curbs national egotism. This is precisely why
it remains the basis of nationality policy both in the Russian
Federation and in the world community.
Life has proved that any rejection of the Federation on a
national basis is, in our country at least, impossible today.
Further advance toward the Federation can take the form of
more effective protection of individuals' national rights,
education of people in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity,
use of two or even three official languages, the strengthening
of legality, and so on.
3. Elimination of the Seats of Interethnic Conflicts
The present status of interethnic relations in the Russian
Federation and throughout the former Soviet Union's territory
can be described as a zone of ethnic calamity
undergoing a complex crisis, where domestic and geopolitical
factors are intertwined. The economy's normal structure is being
destroyed (irreversibly in some places) and, from the strategic
viewpoint, this is more dangerous than the simple slump in
production to which attention is primarily drawn. State
institutions are being denigrated, and there is a decline of
confidence in them and in their authority, which underpins the
legitimacy of any democratic power. This applies not just to
any single branch of power but to state power as such,
without any distinction being drawn between "progressive,"
"democratic," "conservative," legislative, executive, or
judiciary. Their fruitless confrontation only aggravates
the discrediting of the state and of power as such.
It appears that the collapse of the USSR was neither
predestined nor inevitable, despite claims by the "architects"
of the collapse.
The selfsame processes of disintegration are today gathering
pace also in the Russian Federation. In addition to the most
complex knots of interethnic contradictions we have inherited
from the past, equally acute problems develop as consequences of
the current state of the economy, social life, politics, and the
law. These conflicts are reproduced with growing acuteness and
on an expanding scale.
A most important role here is played by political and
ideological factors. The shoots of democracy and of
civilized economics and politics, together with the people's
hopes for national rebirth, have in many instances become
hostages of extremist forces, sundry political
adventurers, and criminal and corrupt structures. Many
national movements, which emerged as forces pursuing the goal of
preserving and reviving their people's spiritual originality and
ensuring their social, cultural, and linguistic survival, have
now descended to political radicalism and extremism.
Anarchy and squabbles at federal level lead to the emergence of
would-be local dictators playing the card of separatism, which
often conceals nothing but a yearning for absolute power.
The ideologists of national "revival" go to extremes in
their
relentless battle for power and for access to assets being
privatized or key positions. They are trying to assert the
freedoms and rights of one people by trampling the
freedoms and elementary human rights of other peoples and of
people from other nationalities living next door to them.
The leaders of national-democrats, who until only yesterday
accused the Union center -- and at times even the whole Russian
people -- of colonizing them and trampling their national
rights, are today cynically taking actions which transform
people of other nationalities and primarily the Russian-speaking
population into second-class people, into outcasts.
Experience shows that unless the nationality problems, with
which the extremists speculate, are resolved "from above" in
relatively civilized forms, they will be resolved "from below"
in distorted forms.
Despite all the criticism of the Federation Treaty, it is a
compromise, an attempt to consolidate the balance of interests.
On the one hand, it is intended to guarantee the process of
self-government by peoples living in Federation components
against unjustified administrative-bureaucratic interference by
the center while, on the other hand, it is intended to prevent
any national or religious diktat on the state and offer a
guarantee against any actions ultimately leading to Russia's
destruction as an integral unified state. Encroachments against
the Federation Treaty continue to this day. Its destruction
will pave the way to a new round of political
confrontation and fruitless struggle.
Russia's traditions, even under the toughest regimes, have
always included the preservation of diversity in the
self-government of peoples and territories.
This political diversity is attainable only if the nations'
interests are painstakingly taken into consideration and
coordinated, and if their democratic cohabitation within the
Federation's framework is guaranteed. At the same time,
consideration for this originality should not become a cover for
infringement of the interests of ethnic minorities and of human
and civil rights and freedoms. The coordination of interests
and the achievement of agreement presuppose mutual
responsibility by all parties -- the federal power and the
organs of power in republics and regions. A real obstacle to
agreement is created not by the preservation of diversity but by
the interests of narrow political and national elites pursuing
goals which are far removed from their officially proclaimed
ones.
On the geopolitical plane, interethnic strife only goes to
promote the country's transformation into a raw-materials
appendage of the world economy, a cesspool for the waste of mass
culture, and a test site for ecologically dirty and dangerous
technologies, and lead to loss of identity and of Russia's role
in world politics. Integration in the world's culture
must not have an obverse -- scorn for one's own history
and the national dignity of one's own peoples.
It would appear that people who determine policy in the mass
media are deliberately implanting the idea of despondency and
hopelessness, trying to convince their audience that we are
living in an uncultured state and only thanks to the
West's humanitarian aid.
A scornful attitude toward history and disregard for the
traditions, forms of economic management, ways of life, and
rights of peoples and individuals can be discerned in numerous
constitutional and political innovations. The ongoing
destruction of the single constitutional area is alarming.
Whereas politicians find it easy to adapt to any conditions,
ordinary citizens are falling victim to constitutional arguments
and political disturbances, and the price they are paying takes
the form of loss of jobs, of property, and at times even of life
itself.
The citizens' real participation in political decisionmaking
is a most important political problem, on which the country's
future democratic development depends. It is necessary to
expand the opportunities enabling representatives of different
peoples to publicize their own interests and their vision of the
way out of the prevailing crisis. The representation of
regions and republics as Federation components is not a proper
substitute for the representation of peoples, be it at a
constitutional conference or at some other forum. Suffice it to
ask: How many peoples and how many Federation components do we
have? After all, the interests of small peoples, divided
peoples, and other communities must also be reflected in the
constitutional and political processes.
There is a pressing need for a special forum of
Russia's peoples to examine strategic, political, and legal
questions from the angle of interethnic relations. Of
course, this means not the restoration of totalitarianism but
the restoration of the traditional, tried and tested values of
the friendship of peoples, of values capable of rallying the
representatives of all nationalities.
At present it is necessary to take advantage of any
opportunity to halt the processes of disintegration and rally
the representatives of various nationalities and political
forces, parties, and movements around positive and constructive
tasks. There can be no simple solutions to highly complex
tasks although, unfortunately, illusions to this effect are
still being nurtured at high levels of power. The solution of
the nationalities question is one such super-complex task,
demanding the mobilization of intellectual and political energy.
Tomorrow the quest for acceptable solutions will be more
complex, the price will be higher, and the costs will be great.
The actual transplanting of the philosophy of "national"
state ("Russian," "Tatar," "Chechen," and so on) on Russian soil
is potentially dangerous for interethnic peace in Russia.
The causes of conflicts vary:
-- historical specific features of the formation of
territories which have today proclaimed themselves independent
republics (the sources of conflicts in the Dniester Region, in
Ossetia-Ingushetia);
-- the "automatic" recognition of state border status for
administrative borders within the USSR is fraught with conflicts
for all former republics;
-- acute confrontation between lay and religious components
in the new political elites and in former and new political
groupings (Tajikistan);
-- historically aggravated ethnopolitical problems (the
Baltic countries);
-- revival of historical territorial disputes (the Karabakh
and Crimea problem)
-- struggle around the problem of state languages (Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, a number of now independent republics);
-- disputes over the division of Union property, including
Army property (Russia-Ukraine);
-- ethnoconfessional disputes and trends toward the
formation
of theocratic states.
The cumulative outburst of national feelings
following the release of communist "clamps" and the uncontrolled
liberal democracy leading to extreme manifestations of militant
nationalism underpin the growing national conflicts and clashes
in the geopolitical area of the former Soviet Union.
It is possible to forecast three models for the
development of potential meganational conflict in the future.
The first is associated with the exacerbation and
growth of ethnic conflicts with differing typology. The lowest
common denominator comprises violent armed attempts to reshape
the existing ethnopolitical area. It is obvious that this
development leads to disintegration of all political, social,
and technological ties (contemporary Yugoslavia is an example).
The second model is associated with the
reintegration of totalitarianism. This violent way of dealing
with the nationality problem can take the form of
military-nationalist regimes ("ethnojuntas"). The most negative
consequences would stem from the establishment in Russia
of a nationalist regime with the ensuing restoration of a
neo-imperial system throughout the geopolitical area.
The third model is the sole peaceful alternative,
presupposing a democratic development. Ethnic tension is eased
through the building of federal states in a series of former
Union republics on a democratic rather than a national basis.
In this process, ties between the independent republics could
be built according to the model of "permeable" and tolerant
sovereignty. The desire to prevent an economic collapse in
post-Soviet states and a complete break of technological ties
between them and to ease pressure by the "Russian factor" in
former Union republics will intensify in the face of the threat
that nationalist regimes may be established.
It would be possible, within the third model's framework, to
halt the catastrophic disintegration of the "Union" economic
area and to prevent the violent armed dismemberment of the
single ethnic area on the territory of the former USSR.
In our view, it is from these positions that the
Russian state position on the question of the "Russian diaspora"
in nearby foreign countries must be elaborated. The USSR's
disintegration has shifted the Russian nationality problem onto
a new plane. In the "imperial" Union, the Russians played the
role of the ethnic integrational components of Union statehood.
At the same time, an "expansion" of the Russian ethnic habitat
occurred within that state's framework (more than 50 percent of
migration flows in the USSR involved the movement of persons of
Russian nationality).
For the first time ever in Russia's entire history we have
witnessed a breakdown of the Russian ethnic area on a massive
scale, which in itself is fraught with potential conflicts. In
several instances the currently independent states are
forming not democratic but purely national states. This
inevitably leads to large-scale discrimination against the
Russian population. We see a "Russian problem" emerging before
our very eyes, a problem which involves:
-- artificial dismemberment of the formerly common Russian
ethnic area;
-- transformation of a considerable mass of Russian
population in nearby foreign countries into either
"second-class" citizens (this began everywhere with the laws on
state languages) or altogether stateless persons;
-- the squeezing out of Russians from a series of newly
formed states;
-- potential nationality conflicts in these states and
intensification of Russophobia;
-- inevitable emergence of Russian national movements in
these states;
-- fusion of these movements with a Russian national (or
nationalist) movement in Russia itself;
-- transformation of the "Russian problem" into a decisive
factor of domestic political struggle in Russia.
Two extreme opposites are possible in the development of
this
process:
a) large-scale interethnic conflict (a series of
national wars) across part of the former USSR's territory with
the ultimate establishment of a nationalist neo-imperial Russian
domination;
b) further disintegration of Russia itself along
nationality lines, which would render the future of
Russians as a single people extremely uncertain.
A third option would be desirable and would result
in the minimum possible conflicts. It presupposes:
-- establishing in the post-Union geopolitical area not a
national but a multinational statehood taking the form of
democratic federations (wherever conditions for it exist);
-- abandoning the absolute form of asserting the sovereignty
of the "indigenous nation" and switching to positions of
tolerant sovereignty of the whole people and all ethnic
groups;
-- squeezing out of power any extremist nationalist
groups (which has partly happened in Lithuania, for
example);
-- forming an active Russian democratic political
factor in all post-Union states;
-- pursuing a purposeful and thoroughly considered
Russian policy on these questions.
The following guidelines for Russian policy are possible:
1. Introduction of state bilingualism in all newly
formed states (primarily in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus,
Moldova, Latvia, and Estonia).
2. Active support for the creation and consolidation
of Russian-speaking communities including, in several cases,
their cultural and national autonomy.
3. The granting by nearby foreign countries of dual
citizenship on request to all persons who are citizens of Russia
by birth, as well as to Cossack representatives.
4. Support of initiatives to form local national
organs of administration and create Russian national local
"communal administration" in places densely populated by
Russians.
5. Appropriation of funds to support Russian culture
and education (creation of Russian and Slavic universities,
schools, newspapers, and so on).
6. Pursuit of a tough policy, even including economic
sanctions, toward former Soviet states where civil rights are
violated; adoption of a standard "package" of guaranteed rights
and freedoms for all citizens of the republics, including the
Russian population, with provision for the granting of
preferential economic treatment (especially in relations
with Latvia and Estonia).
7. A stepping up of Russian foreign policy efforts in
support of justified demands for the obesrvation of human rights
and freedoms in nearby foreign countries.
8. Immediate signing of agreements with former Union
republics on questions concerning citizenship, protection of
national minority rights, migration, legal aid, pension
provision, reciprocal recognition of educational diplomas,
opening of consulates.
9. Regular monitoring of positions taken by leading
political forces in the republics on the "Russian problem.
10. Elaboration of short-, medium-, and long-term
programs for the solution of the "Russian problem" throughout
the post-Soviet geopolitical area.
These are just a few reflections on the conflict-free
resolution of the "Russian problem." It is obvious that the
Russian leadership will have to be prepared for counterdemands
in connection with ethnic problems on Russian territory.
4. Russia Within the System of Newly Independent States
Following the Union's disintegration into 15 so-called Newly
Independent States [NIS], the words written by political
scientist D. Simes (NEWSDAY) are still valid today: "...the
`evil empire,' where power was based on violence and compulsion,
has been replaced by several evils: the emergence of
interethnic hatred and the clashing ambitions of different
political elites. Millions of people have suddenly been deprived
of a community. In these conditions, they have come up against
intolerance and extremism. Bloody wars, accompanied by
thousands of victims, are raging in different parts of the
former Soviet Union."
It can hardly be expected that peace, prosperity, and
tranquility will come to Russia or the other NIS in 1994.
Thus, according to data of the U.S. Department of Defense
Defense Intelligence Service, there are forecasts of 12
potential armed conflicts on the territory of the former USSR.
It is estimated that 523,000 persons may be killed in military
operations during these conflicts, 4.24 million may die of
diseases, 88 million may be hit by famine, and the number of
refugees may reach 21.67 million.
Ensuring their own safety and that of their families and
friends is becoming an increasingly topical problem for
Russians. Whereas this problem worried 31 percent of Muscovites
in May 1993, this figure had already risen to 42 percent in
September.
The economy is aggravating the situation, and it is still
hard to expect any swift and major changes for the better here.
Indeed, according to IMF data, virtually all basic indicators
in the NIS had declined by an average of one-fourth in
comparison with 1989-1990, while consumer prices increased
1,284.6 percent in 1992; in 1993 the volume of GDP will decline
by 13.7 percent and prices will increase by 940.6 percent.
In Russia: GDP declined by 12.9 percent in 1991, by 18.5
percent in 1992, and by 14.9 percent in 1993; monthly inflation
in the Russian Federation stood at 18 percent in 1993.
Unemployment in Russia will affect 3.5-6 million persons
according to government data and 10-11 million persons according
to International Labor Organization data; the number of people
employed in material production in Russia will be reduced by 26
million in 1991-1995, according to forecasts by the Russian
Academy of Sciences National Economic Forecasts Institute.
The restoration of the protective and reproductive
functions for Russians is the sovereign state's basic task.
In what forms should these functions be restored on a new
basis? On the basis of democracy and market relations.
However, commitment to democracy and market relations by
itself is not a state idea which can unite multinational Russia
in a unified state. The birth of specific methods of
transformation, just like of a state idea, is painful nowadays,
having to fight through the complexes of the past and the
contradictions of the present.
The basic criteria in this process could be the minimization
of social losses; the spiritual, humanistic, and moral
orientation of transformations; and the balancing of the
interests of the world community and of the Russian Federation's
peoples.
Today, just like in 1991, Russia is facing the task of how
to
really become sovereign. An analysis of the past two years
shows increasingly clearly that not a single one of the NIS,
including Russia, was prepared either politically, or
economically, or psychologically for sovereign existence.
The end of 1991 saw the formation of 15 protostates without
borders, armies, monetary systems, infrastructures, state or
national interests, full-blooded economies, and so on. It ought
to be concluded that, even today, not a single one of these
states is "full-blooded" in this sense. Consequently, in 1994
just as in the two preceding years, their development will be
determined by the following blocks of problems:
a) completing the formation of sovereign states with all
state attributes;
b) creating an effective system of mutual relations between
the NIS;
c) joining the political, military, economic, and other
systems existing in the world.
"Openness" presupposes meeting the other states halfway,
establishing new mutual relations with them, and expanding the
sphere of these relations. Conversely, sovereignization of each
NIS and its separation from the Union would mean drawing away
from its former neighbors in the "communal state," a certain
stepping up of autarky, breakdown of existing ties, and
alienation.
This contradiction determined the logic of mutual relations
between the NIS, which developed in two opposite directions.
First, there was an increasingly noticeable
manifestation of interstate relations: establishment of customs
regimes and borders. Most republics -- the Baltic countries,
Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Kazakhstan -- are introducing either national currencies or
ersatz money on the basis of autonomous emission. The financial
system is being structuralized. Balances of payments and trade
are being determined, the former USSR's foreign debt assets and
liabilities are being divided, debt accounting is being
established, and so on.
Second, integrational feelings are growing, or at
least the desire for an early break is weakening, in most former
republics (except Latvia and Estonia, and partly Lithuania and
Turkmenistan).
Nonetheless, today it is still premature to talk of
integration or disintegration. What we are observing for the
time being is the coexistence not of the NIS but of real
authorities at different levels in these NIS. For example, how
is it possible to treat as part of Russian-Kazakhstani relations
the tripartite political-economic "union" of Kazakhstan,
Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan, which was signed in August 1992
and under which Bashkortostan ceased delivering oil products to
Russian departments?
In 1994 it will be necessary either to make efforts to place
Russia's relations with the NIS on the firm basis of
international law, or to create "suprastate" structures with
powers of authority.
It is more than likely that both forms will develop. In the
immediate future, the formation of civilized relations between
the NIS will be influenced by the following factors:
-- the incomplete disintegration of the USSR, as a result of
which the subjects of interstate relations have not been finally
defined. It is possible that their number may be either
increased (if separatism intensifies in Russia, Moldova,
Georgia, Ukraine, and so on) or reduced (if the processes of
integration are intensified). Two fundamentally different
principles are clearly manifest: the national-territorial
(separation into autonomous republics and national-territorial
formations) and the regional (separation into purely Russian
regions).
Analysis shows that the Russian Federation's disintegration
will hardly end up as a "sovereignty bandwagon" of autonomous
formations. The "indigenous" etnnic groups represent even a
relative majority in only 11 out of the 31 national-territorial
formations.
Separatist moods are intensifying in proper Russian regions:
in the Far East, the Urals, Kuban, Siberia. This has not been
observed either in the NIS or in East European countries.
The following forecasts can be made for 1994:
-- retention of an economy with a price structure out
of kilter with world prices. In 1993 Russia supplied
products to the NIS at prices equivalent to 30-40 percent of
world prices while purchasing from them at prices equivalent to
70 percent of world prices, and consequently Russia had a
positive balance of about 750 billion rubles in trade with the
NIS in the first six months;
-- deterioration of the situation of etnnic Russians in
the NIS, having become an ethnic minority there. The
situation is being aggravated by the fact that virtually all the
NIS, being multinational, have opted for the nationalist idea in
strengthening the state.
-- "lukewarm" attitudes of the world community,
primarily of the G-7 countries, toward individual NIS and
the structure of mutual relations prevailing in the post-Soviet
area. It ought to be noted in this context that, first, in
1992-1993 the majority of NIS lost their illusions about Western
aid but certain hopes remained that some would be integrated
within the EC while others would draw closer to Asian countries
and would enjoy their support; second, there is a steadily
growing economic dependence on the West; and third, there is an
increasingly clearly manifest tendency by the West to pursue
mainly its own interests in relations with the NIS (for example,
squeezing Russia out of the arms market and other technology
markets, increasing purchases of energy sources from Russia at
the expense of deliveries to nearby foreign countries, and so
on).
Several systems of collaboration between the NIS will be
formed in 1994. In one way or another, priority is being
given to the problem of structuralizing the geopolitical area
with the aim of boosting stability in the region and the
management of political processes.
5. Ways to Form a Civil Society
Terms like "civil society" and "citizens" have been
increasingly actively used in our vocabulary recently, whereas
in the past these terms were virtually unencountered in the mass
media. And the word "citizen" was used primarily by law
enforcement organs. At best it was taken to mean the juridical
unit of the state system.
Civil society became the topic of study back in the late
17th
and early 18th centuries, in the works of Hobbes, Locke, and
Hegel. These thinkers perceived the possibility of a relatively
autonomous social life existing outside state control.
There are two approaches toward the civil society in world
science today:
1. As a package of social relations counterposed to the
state, in other words everything that cannot properly be
described as state, power, politics, and bureaucracy.
2. As a form of existence for a bourgeois
(market-democratic) society.
We support the first approach.
Civil society is a systemic element of a single metasystem
(socium). It is that part of society which stands outside
political authority, upholds primarily private interests, and
guarantees the inviolability of private life.
Civil society and the state are two sides of one and
the same coin. They complement one another.
Civil society includes:
-- voluntarily and spontaneously formed primary
self-governing communities of people (family, cooperatives,
associations, economic corporations, public organizations, and
professional, creative, sports, ethnic, confessional, and other
associations);
-- the totality of nonstate (nonpolitical) economic, social,
spiritual, moral, and other public relations;
-- the productive and private lives of people, their
customs,
traditions, and morals;
-- the sphere of self-government of free individuals and
their organizations, protected by the law against direct
interference therein by state power and politics.
It is the civil society that destroys the statesmen's
monopoly on power and balances state power with the power of
private individuals and independent organizations.
A highly developed civil society in many advanced
countries has ensured considerable protection of the
private spheres of man's life against rigid regulation by the
state. For this purpose, powerful protective associations
have been formed within its structure (societies for the
protection of human rights, societies for the protection of
consumers, and so on).
Citizens of countries where a civil society has formed very
rarely come in contact with their state. In the rest of the
world, the population is forced into constant contact with it:
The state constantly regulates something, it allows or bans
things, even including people's place of residence and work,
travel for leisure or education purposes, the acquisition of
goods, and so on.
Following the October Revolution and the first steps in the
implementation of the New Economic Policy [in 1921], our society
adopted a line toward affirming geunine social protection for
our working people. Generally speaking, despite all the
complexities and deformities of subsequent development, these
principles had a beneficial effect on our life. But left-wing
orientations prevailed soon afterwards; a military-bureaucratic
state was established in practice and the upper hand was gained
by administrative power methods of government, bringing forth a
series of phenomena alien to a civil society: global
statization of economic and social life, mass repressions, and
working people's alienation from ownership, the results of their
labor, and political power. Virtually all citizens' association
which were not approved by the top were destroyed, banned, and
driven underground already by the late 1920's. This resulted in
undermining the economic and social foundation of the civil
society's vital activity and in destroying its social sphere,
thus leading to serious stagnation. But totalitarianism failed
to completely destroy all the institutions of civil society.
Some of its structures proved amazingly durable and adaptable.
We have to form a civil society as a ramified network
of social relations and institutions independent of the
state, expressing the will and protecting the interests of
citizens. Bearing in mind the population's low standard of civil
culture and the bureaucracy's resistance, this process will be
extremely protracted and very painful.
These are the conditions of a civil society's vital
activity:
-- all its members must own specific property and
the right to utilize it and dispose of it as they see fit.
Thus, the foundation could be provided by privatization, which
will lead to the creation of self-organizing structures of small
and medium businesses independent of the state;
-- the existence of a developed and rich social
structure, reflecting the diversity of the interests of
different groups and strata. Life has confirmed that
poverty and an undeveloped social structure have always provided
a breeding ground for dictatorial regimes.
The social base of a civil society is the so-called middle
stratum (middle class). It includes scientific,
engineering-technical, management, and administrative personnel
(not holding top administrative positions); salaried
intelligentsia; urban and rural small owners (farmers); highly
skilled workers; and some workers from the services sphere. The
middle stratum in developed countries comprises 60-70 percent of
the population. It is the middle stratum which not only ensures
scientific and technical progress but also imparts economic and
political stability to society;
-- sufficiently high level of development of
individuals themselves, their inner freedom, and the ability to
participate in the civil society's institutions.
Civil society is a self-organizing and self-developing
system. Society itself will, to a large extent, create favorable
conditions for it either through the state or despite
it. Through the state -- via the adoption of necessary
laws, the formation of democratic state structures, and the
strict observance of universally accepted democratic norms and
procedures by the state. This requires a strong state power.
In the majority of European countries, civil society
emerged in the conditions of authoritarian regimes actively
supporting the institutions of civil society.
Its development can also occur despite the state -- through
the formation of counterweights within the Constitution's
framework, taking the form of independent associations and mass
media and of oppositionist public democratic movements. By
creating institutions of self-government, civil society also
takes on a series of state functions, which could promote
stabilization in our country.
The building of a democratic society presupposes the
narrowing of the sphere of state regulation of citizens' vital
activity, rather than the opposite.
Civil society is the supreme stage and most modern form of
human community. Progress is associated with the withering away
of the state, with its being absorbed within a civil society.
6. The Status of Crime and Russia's Security
It is no accident that these two ideas have been juxtaposed.
For a long time the concept of the struggle against crime in the
country was officially built upon the "withering away" of
criminal phenomena during the process of socialist and communist
building. The struggle against it was assigned mainly to law
enforcement organs, in other words it was based on repressive
criminal law methods. The prevention of crime, which was
discussed at such length, was never properly launched. This
soft approach toward crime as a phenomenon without any deep
economic and sociopolitical roots only drove the problem deeper.
The law enforcement organs were forced to manipulate
statistics by artificially inflating or deflating the real
indicators.
Crime in Russia reached an unprecedent scale in 1992. About
2.8 million crimes were committed, and this figure included a
more than 40-percent rise in the number of premeditated murders
and an increase in the number of assaults and robberies by a
factor of 1.6. The number of crimes per 100,000 members of the
population increased from 1,467 to 1,857, in other words an
increase by virtually one-third.
This trend persisted also in 1993, but the number of
recorded crimes hardly reflects the true picture.
According to some experts' estimates, recently there have been
some 10-12 million crimes committed in Russia each year. The
statistics do not include 80 percent of embezzlement cases, 90
percent of fraud cases, and the overwhelming number of rape
cases.
Some 352,000 persons have been killed or maimed by criminals
during the last four years. More than 172,000 persons have been
killed in road traffic accidents and fires. These figures
are comparable only with war casualties.
The criminal world is becoming more professional and is
acquiring modern technology and weapons.
The rising crime poses a real threat to national
security and the policy of implementation of reforms.
It is perfectly obvious that crime, like a mirror, reflects
the general condition of our society and primarily of its
foundation -- the economy. Organized crime is
becoming a special danger for society in the period of political
and economic changes in the country. The Russian mafia is
becoming more cruel and more brazen than its counterpart abroad.
More than 4,000 origanized criminal communities have been
exposed in Russia, including over 1,000 with international and
interregional links. One out of every four groups is protected
by corrupt functionaries in different structures. According to
experts' estimates, these relations involve up to 40 percent of
entrrepreneurs and two-thirds of all commercial structures. So
far the efforts to combat this growing threat have failed to
produce any tangible results.
This threat has not even been legislatively defined.
Therefore, we feel that the best possible definition is
contained in the UN secretary general's report:
a) organized crime is the activity of associations or
criminal individuals or groupings united on an economic basis.
These groupings are highly reminiscent of gangs during the
feudal era, which existed in medieval Europe prior to the
emergence of the state. Economic benefits are gained by the
supply of illegal services and goods, or of legal services and
goods using illegal methods;
b) organized crime presupposes conspiratorial criminal
activity, an hierarchy of structures, and coordination of the
planning and execution of illegal acts;
c) organized criminal groupings strive to establish a
monopoly or an almost complete monopoly on the supply of illegal
goods and services to consumers;
d) organized crime is not limited just to pursuit of
obviously illegal activity or the supply of illegal services.
It also includes sophisticated types of activity like money
laundering via legitimate economic structures and manipulations
effected with the help of electronic means. Illegal criminal
groupings infiltrate many profitable legitimate types of
activity;
e) the criminals organized within groupings use cruel
methods
like threats, violence, and corruption. These methods can be
either sophisticated and refined or, conversely, gross, direct,
and blatant. They are used to gain economic benefit through the
establishment of monopoly on the supply of illegal goods and
services or by infiltrating legitimate types of activity and
corrupting officials. Thus, whenever persons involved in
organized criminal activity start engaging in legitimate
commercial activity, they normally bring into it the methods of
violence and intimidation.
There is an expansion of criminal organizations in Russia,
and this is preconditioned primarily by the growth of
sociopolitical instability and the weakening of state structures
in the country at a time when the new democratic institutions
are still weak.
The new categories of criminal activity include:
-- the illegal sale of weapons in conditions of instability
both in Russia and in nearby foreign countries. The volume of
illegal weapons sales has increased also as a result of ethnic
and nationalist outbursts (Northern Caucasus, Georgia,
Azerbaijan, Tajikistan);
-- the theft of and trade in stolen cars;
-- the theft of cargoes carried by railroad and motor
vehicle transport;
-- the embezzlement and illegal exportation of historical
and cultural valuables;
-- crimes committed with the help of electronic means;
-- fraud associated with credit cards and other financial
documents;
-- the illegal disposal of dangerous waste;
-- the trade in human organs;
-- the "laundering" of illegally earned money;
-- the embezzlement and illegal exportation of raw
materials, energy sources, and rare-earth and nonferrous metals;
-- the large-scale production of and trade in drugs;
-- insurance frauds;
-- money forgery;
-- smuggling;
-- fraudulent bankruptcies.
According to experts' estimates, the illegal circulation of
drugs in the country amounts to 50-60 billion rubles a year,
while more than 1.5 million Russian citizens regularly use drugs
for nonmedical purposes.
An intensive process of fusing general criminal activity and
economic crimes, drugs trafficking, and corruption is under way
in the country.
There is no doubt that the negative effect of organized
crime
on our society is growing and affecting all its
structures at individual, collective, and state levels, being a
cynical form of lawlessness which maliciously violates citizens'
rights and constitutional guarantees.
In this context, a special danger is posed by corruption and
its consequences. The taking of illegal advantage of state
office to gain personal benefit is a "breeding ground" for
criminal groupings whose leaders consider the payment of sundry
bribes to officials as one form of investing their funds.
We have at present a fine-tuned system of bribery in the
credit-finance sphere, the trade network, transportation, and
the organs engaged in foreign economic activity, licensing, and
privatization. Going bribery rates have been established for
allocation of land parcels, reregistration of enterprises,
evasion of military service, assistance in concealing revenue
from taxation, avoidance of customs regulations with impunity,
and other illegal operations. Therefore, the corruption of
officials from law enforcement organs and other state
institutions engenders among the public profound mistrust
in the authorities and undermines people's faith in the laws and
the state.
Organized crime is manifesting a growing desire to
infiltrate
the country's economy. Arguments have been heard recently
claiming that the investment of illegally earned funds in the
legitimate economy would help its stabilization. But this is
nothing but a myth. World experience shows that organized
criminal activity destabilizes all economic spheres and disrupts
the natural effect of market forces. The revenues of organized
criminal groupings are suffuciently high, but these funds are
withdrawn from normal circulation. All this gives urgency to
the elaboration of specific long-term measures to combat
organized crime.
Criminal groupings continue to actively penetrate society's
social and political life. While pursuing their objectives,
they are now influencing both election campaigns and the
legislative processes by corrupting politicians and officials.
Organized criminal groupings are also trying to extend their
influence on the mass media. Thus, a process of organized
crime's evolution into an antisocial system claiming leadership
in the economy and in politics is now under way in Russia.
Some Conclusions
The unchecked spread of crime in our country is a
consequence of the overall weakening of the state and its power
structures. The solution of this problem is a
statewide task, whereby the actual plan of struggle against
crime must become part of a program for strengthening and
developing the Russian state, based on nationwide accord.
Of course, the specific activity to curb and uproot crime
must be conducted and improved in parallel with all measures to
strengthen Russian statehood, but must be implemented much
faster and more efficiently.
There must be no delay in elaborating and implementing this
plan. The present conditions in Russia and the CIS countries
are creating a situation which is unique in human history and
typical only of the former USSR republics in the light of the
specific economic and political aspects of their history, the
contemporary period of transition, and the future prospects.
Organized crime and corruption are most dangerous by dint of
their destructive long-term consequences for the individual,
society, and the state.
The accumulation of vast wealth by individuals and clans in
the world of organized crime inevitably leads to the need to
politically protect their interests. Hence the
desire to control power in the state, bribe
high-ranking officials, and promote the recipients of bribes to
higher positions.
Russia and the CIS countries are experiencing a
multiplication of established criminal communities which either
have, or are in the process of establishing, a financial base
for the attainment of their goals, major arsenals of weapons,
hierarchical structures, far-reaching conspiracy, and rigid
discipline with vertical subordination and the use of terror,
even including the physical elmination of people.
Organized crime, relying on general criminal activity and
corruption, is beginning to permeate all cells of society and
the state organism, extending to vitally important centers and
spheres: the economy, finance, science and technology, culture,
the Armed Forces, and so on. Therefore, the plan for struggle
against crime must be specifically geared without
overlooking a single one of these spheres.
Organized crime recognizes no borders. It is increasingly
becoming not only interregional but also transnational, and
therefore the struggle against it requires the pooling of the
world community's efforts.
The primary task is to create a firm legislative basis,
enforce respect for the law, and ensure the law's implementation
by all citizens, social associations, and state structures --
primarily by the law enforcement organs themselves. For
this purpose it is necessary to adopt the most radical
measures, even though they may be unpopular. Russians will
support them if they perceive that this is not just another
campaign but a state policy which really ensures the
security of the individual and society.
Section II: II. Formation of Genuine Spiritual Principles
and Values of the Russian People
1. Need for a National Idea
During the most critical periods of our fatherland's
history,
the nation has been saved thanks to the vast reserves of the
Russian people's spiritual strength. A most important role here
is played by the Russian idea.
The Russian idea comprises primarily Orthodox spirituality
which is distinguished by its refusal to rationalize faith and
its acceptance of God with the soul, with love, and with a
selfless perception of beauty. It is underpinned by the concept
of conciliarism [sobornost] as the unification of
people for the sake of the Orthodox faith's revival and the
fatherland's prosperity.
The Russian people's commitment to the idea of
statehood is historically established. Only the moral
authority of state power is capable of containing the anarchic
quests for the kingdom of truth within the confines of the
evolutionary path.
Another key aspect of the Russian idea is the
universality of the Russian national character, in other
words its tolerance for and acceptance of other ideas and
traditions, its ability to coexist with neighboring peoples. In
all probability, this quality is exploited, more than any other,
by those who would like to dilute the universal love for one's
neighbor into abstract universal human values.
There has been a long pressing need to start talking about
statehood on a state level. By dint of its unique
geopolitical situation, Russia has an opportunity to take its
proper position in the community of the 21st century and turn
into a really highly developed world power. One of the mistakes
of our government, the president, and his entourage is the fact
that they hardly ever discuss this with the people. The
nation must regain its dignity, clearly perceive its
historic prospects, and acquire confidence in its future and its
own strength.
It is necessary for the idea of statehood to become state
ideology and political practice and, ultimately, state policy.
All citizens, state institutions, and branches of power
must support the idea of statehood by all possible means.
The great Russian philosopher Vl. Solovyev emphasized:
"Individual human beings and entire nations alike face the task
of complementing each other without losing their originality
but, on the contrary, expressing it to the utmost. The true
unity of peoples is not homogeneity but pannational spirit, in
other words interaction and solidarity by all for autonomous and
full life by all."
These are truly sacred words, calling for unity. Everything
that has happened over the last few years is at times
reminiscent of the flight of troops, abandoning behind them to
the vagaries of fate 25 million captives -- Russians and
Russian-speaking compatriots who have suddenly found themselves
in alien countries nowadays dubbed nearby foreign countries.
Now, drawing parallels with the USSR, Russia itself is
already "at breaking point." The question of its integrity and
its future faces us with utmost urgency.
There are quite a few "time bombs" along the path which
Russia has taken. The unequal status of peoples without their
own statehood, and primarily the Russian people. The
centrifugal tendencies stemming from the national-economic
separatism of some Federation components. The growth of
religious-nationalist separatism. Administrative borders are
being reshaped at the will of irresponsible politicians and are
acquiring the status of state borders, which history and the
peoples will hardly accept.
Scientists and politicians pondering these problems today
single out several paths and several models of development.
They include dictatorship on an imperial scale, the emergence
of numerous "ethnojuntas" and enclaves, spontaneous or
artificially provoked outburst of Russian nationalism leading to
the revival of unity by force and uprooting all separatist
tendencies, military intervention by other states, artificial
creation of a separate "Russian Republic," and enforced
colonization of the etnnic groups and nations inhabiting the
country's territory. And yet, some time ago, the Russian
thinker I. Ilin warned: "Those who would dismember
Russia...dream that, after the bolsheviks' fall, the citizens of
united Russia will again slide into chaos and anarchy, will
decompose their state with impunity...and, with total disregard
for everything, will set up as many new `statelets' as they
fancy, each one of these new formations having its own army,
currency, and diplomacy.... This is why they want to see the
`Russian national groups' discarding the existence of a single
Russian people and state and, taking advantage of the
postbolshevik chaos, bringing about universal arbitrariness and
collapse..., they dream of turning Russia into a multiplicity of
pitiful and strategically impotent pigmies -- thus leaving it
open to conquest and enslavement by western and southeastern
states."
The guiding idea of "pannational spirit" -- unifying,
reconciling extremes along Russian lines, and creating
conditions for peaceful democratic development -- can lead to
Russia's deliverance, revival, and future prosperity.
One of the main obstacles, in our view, is the fact that
today's national-state structure of the Russian Federation does
not guarantee the rights of different nationalities and does not
promote the preservation of the state's integrity. Not all
Federation components enjoy equal state-legal status. Some 100
nationalities living in Russia still have an undefined status.
Both national experience -- the Russian Empire and the
Soviet
Union (despite all past mistakes and shortcomings of
nationalities policy, this historical experience contains much
that is positive), and international experience -- China, the
United States, and Switzerland, offer much that is of interest
in matter of state building. "All men are born free and equal
in status and rights," according to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Each person must enjoy all rights and freedoms
regardless of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or
other beliefs, national or social origin, and class or other
status. This should be the basis when forming the structures of
a state system guaranteeing equality for all Russians.
A breakup of the Russian ethnos is now under way, or rather
its violent split, with the formation in former Union and
autonomous republics of Russian national minorities, at times
accounting for up to 50 percent of the population, and this in
itself is already fraught with catastroiphic conflicts. Any
attempts to concentrate in Russian communities the millions of
people who have ended up as refugees in their own country or as
the hostages of ambitious politicians, would have virtually the
same result. Abandoned homes and hearths, migration of the work
force which would be fatal for the national economies, grief and
death for people. The years of labor by tens of millions of
people are being erased as a result of the repartition of ethnic
habitats.
Russian people, regardless of where they live and provided
their national awareness is maintained, are the driving force of
Russia's revival. The state strategy of the Russian great
power must be based on the historical and spiritual heritage of
its people. Russia will never be revived unless the world
outlook and national awareness typical of our people are
recreated.
2. The Role of Science. Russia's Scientific and Technical
Priorities
The strategy of national security must take into account, as
some of its most important priorities, the development of
culture, science, and education as the foundations of the
nation's development and spirituality.
History has proved that, thanks to scientific and technical
progress, efficient socioeconomic growth has been graphically
achieved by states with the most diverse social systems,
territorial size, and reserves of natural and labor resources.
Virtually all industrial countries actively finance the
institutions of national science, whether administered by state
ministries and departments or the private sector. They
create powerful centers for the gathering, processing, analysis,
and dissemination of scientific information. They participate
in capital construction and the outfitting of research centers
and laboratories with modern equipment, reagents, and
instruments. In the United States, for example, the
federal government finances about 50 percent of the national
total of expenditure on all scientific research and development
and about 80 percent of the national total of fundamental
scientific research.
The most important factor is the desire to enhance the
science-intensiveness of the national product. The dynamics of
prices in the civilized world market unambiguously proves the
advantages of marketing the products of science-intensive
sectors.
The state is aware of the priority of scientific and
technical progress also as regards the fast pace of development
of the "military branch" of the global scientific and technical
revolution. Both today and in the future the state's defense
capability will be determined by the qualitative parameters of
arms and military equipment.
Today's world is on the verge of a new stage of the
scientific and technical revolution, which will be distinguished
by an even greater wealth of information. As competition forces
the economies of advanced countries into an accelerated
development of science-intensive sectors, the latter will
increasingly supplant sectors based on the utilization of
unskilled labor and energy- and materials-intensive production
units. They require vast quantities of raw materials to ensure
that their plants do not shut down -- iron, steel, cement,
timber, oil products, and so on. They are the main sources of
pollution and other ecological problems on the planet.
Furthermore, they need markets for the export of mass
production output.
The economies of "third generation" countries will depend to
an incalculable degree on the availability of territory suitable
for agricultural production. In contrast with the
"industrialized countries," they will not be so strongly
dependent on their own sources of energy and foodstuffs. What
they will need first and foremost will be knowledge -- the
actual "hard currency" of the era of the scientific and
technical revolution. These countries will need access to and
control of data banks and telecommunications networks. They
need markets for commodities and services, management
consultancies, computer programs, and financial and economic
statistics. There will also be a need for reliable protection
against piracy of intellectual property.
The main objective of Russia's scientific and technical
policy is to ensure conditions, commensurate with the country's
geopolitical and economic status, which would guarantee the
fullest possible utilization of already accumulated scientific
potential and its further growth in the interests of the
development of the country's economy, its foreign policy
positions, and its defense capability.
Social calamities have not bypassed the sphere of science,
either. This is indicated primarily by the decline of its
national-state prestige and the sharp cutbacks in finance for
it. Expenditure on science has been reduced from 5.1 percent of
national income in 1991 to 3.1 percent in 1993.
Is this accidental?
Its development has been mainly determined by the state's
political stipulations. Science in the USSR has not always been
a direct productive force, but it did remain a factor of
national prestige until just a few years ago. It was not
customary in this sphere to consider expenses and take account
of losses when performing state tasks, such as creating a
powerful research and experimental base for nuclear physics,
developing ICBM's, and exploring space.
Financial cutbacks in 1990 showed that the state was no
longer capable of playing the role of a generous patron. There
is a real danger of ruin for many famous scientific schools,
creative collectives, and important scientific avenues which are
a matter of national and worldwide pride.
At the same time, there has been a sharp deterioration in
the
already inadequate provision of material and technical backup
for science. In this regard we have always lagged behind
industrially developed countries and, while science in the West
was retooling, the lag from which we suffered has turned into a
gap which is difficult to close. By the late 1980's the
fixed assets of science represented less than 2 percent of the
national economy's fixed assets. The gap between the level
of the material, technical, and information base and the tasks
of modern science is one of the most substantial factors of the
general crisis in Russia's science.
The economic decline in 1991-1993 has virtually
eliminated our country's instrument making -- it has proved
to be unprofitable. There is no foreign currency to purchase
imported instruments. The information backup for science can be
said to be at almost zero-level, and Russia's scientists appear
to be cut off from the world's data banks. More than
two-thirds of polled leaders and associates of leading academic
institutes in Moscow believe that the situation in this sphere
is catastrophic. The mothballing of the existing material and
technical base cannot be ruled out in the immediate future.
Here we have reached a "lag threshold" beyond which any
realistic activity within the framework of the world's
scientific system would become problematic and even impossible
along many avenues.
The numerical strength of specialists engaged in research
work in the sectors of science and scientific services declined
by approximately 12 percent in 1991 alone. The scientists'
labor has been devalued. By the end of 1992, for example, their
salaries were 30 percent less than the average in the national
economy. According to Goskomstat [State Committee for
Statistics] data, the "Science and Scientific Services" sector
ranks only 11th out of the 13 basic national economic
sectors. The situation has changed somewhat recently, but
is far from stable.
Public opinion did not shift in the scientists' favor,
either. The bulk of the population has always perceived them as
social parasites. The situation was aggravated by the wholesale
recruitment of scientific workers by the government apparatus
and sundry commissions and committees.
All this prompted scientists to leave the confines of their
laboratories and even the state's borders. The average monthly
number of cadres leaving the sectors of science and scientific
services in 1991-1992 was double the number of new recruits.
Postgraduate study has lost its prestige.
According to Russian MVD Visas and Registrations
Administration data, taking into account only people who have
emigrated on a permanent basis, 4,572 persons engaged in science
and national education emigrated from the country in 1992 (7.8
percent of the total number of emigrating ablebodied adults).
The ones who are leaving are, as a rule, either already
established persons or the young and most promising ones. The
youngest generation in Russian science will soon end up being a
generation of 40-year olds. Using UN methodology, it has been
calculated that the losses which Russia will incur as a result
of the brain drain will amount to $60-70 billion a year.
The development of Russia's statehood, economy, and
society is inseparably linked with and, moreover, unimaginable
without, the development of science. Given a sensible
utilization of its potential, it is capable of enriching society
and the state. But: Science in Russia, having taken the path of
re-forming, was from the very beginning excluded from the number
of spheres on which the top leadership and authorities at all
levels focused their attention. The situation has also changed
in the military-political sphere: The authorities' interest in
the defense sector, including its fundamental basis -- defense
science which is nurturing many fields of knowledge -- has
significantly declined.
International experts recently drew the following
conclusion:
Russia's scientific potential represents its
second-largest national asset after its natural resources.
The scientific prestige and creative potential of academic
colectives engaged in fundamental reesearch were created by many
generations. We have no right to squander this capital.
Its is clear that a natural integration is needed in the new
economic conditions. We ought to concentrate on the
assimilation of academic elaborations in the applied science
sphere and provide various work and services of a scientific and
scientific-technical nature helping the implementation of major
projects. There is demand for highly professional expert
evaluation of projects and elaborations, as well as for the
development and utilization of training and information centers
for the training and retraining of scientific cadres. Life has
proved that many research workers are only vaguely aware of the
key problems of the market -- its requirements, the conditions
of competitive struggle, questions of profitability, and so on.
Sectoral science, covering almost 70 percent of Russia's
entire research infrastructure, has firmly embarked on market
relations. But it has also suffered serious blows inflicted by
market elements. The USSR Law on the State Enterprise, which
also extended to sectoral scientific and technical
organizations, failed to take into account the fundamental
differences between the process of creating scientific-technical
output and the process of creating industrial output.
Unfortunately, Russian legislation extended this tradition.
OECD experts offer radical methods: It is necessary to cut
the number of persons employed in science and scientific
services in Russia by two-thirds, to the level of 300,000, at
the expense of sectoral science. Is this not a mechanistic
approach?
There is also the inarguable conclusion that sectoral
science
is overweighted in favor of the defense, space, nuclear, and
machine building complexes. The conversion now under way will
actually solve this problem by gearing science in the defense
sectors to civilian needs. Of course, there is a far from
inarguable claim that the output of this complex is currently
unsuitable for market conditions. On the contrary, we are
obviously unwillingly -- due to fear from competition -- allowed
to take advanced technologies to the world market where there is
considerable demand for them. This is the essence of the Western
"recommendations."
It is well known that the most significant discoveries in
science occur at the juncture of its different sectors. It
seems that the quest for the best possible organizational
structures in science during its transition to a market economy
must also be nurtured by ideas from both flanks -- science and
production. Any unilateral organizational and economic
transformations are fraught with the loss of scientific
potential.
Privatization in science is also necessary. But, as
specialists assume, it must be regulated by the provisions of a
special program based on general principles but also taking into
account the specific features of scientific activity and geared
to the efficient reorganization of the sphere of research work.
At present more than 45 percent of the network of
organizations engaged in scientific research and development in
Russia are situated on the territory of nine regions. These are
the city of Moscow and Moscow Oblast; the city of St. Petersburg
and Leningrad Oblast; Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Rostov, and
Nizhniy Novgorod Oblasts; and the Republic of Bashkortostan.
Unfortunately, until the last few years, Russia lacked a
regional scientific policy. The main point here is to avoid
going to extremes: Shifting all responsibilities for its
implementation either to the center or to local authorities,
either of which will lead to undesirable consequences in the
development of both science and the regions.
It is necessary to show concern for the future of closed
science cities like Arzamas-16. Having a unique scientific and
technical potential at their disposal, science cities could
become centers for the development of new knowledge,
technologies, and modern education, conduits for technical
innovations in all spheres of the national economy, and the
basis for the development of state scientific centers and the
conversion of industrial production units.
The draft working program of the Russian Federation Council
of Ministers-Government for 1993-1995 "Development of Reforms
and Stabilization of Russia's Economy" contains numerous
provisions addressing science. This is promising. It is, of
course, important to ensure that plans do not remain just good
intentions. Much will depend on the Russian Federation Ministry
of Science and Technology Policy, which has been given extensive
powers.
In accordance with strategic objectives, Russia's
scientific and technical policy ought to be formulated by the
legislative organs and adopted as an unconditional priority by
the country's government.
This will require:
-- That specialized committees (commissions) for problems of
the country's scientific and technical development be created in
the legislative chambers of Russia's future parliament,
assigning to them, among other tasks, the preparation of regular
analytical reviews for the elaboration of appropriate
legislative acts.
-- That the government's statistical records organs are
obliged by appropriate decisions by the chambers of Russia's
parliament to publish statistical material on the country's
economy, including the collection and analysis of statistical
data on the numerical strength of the contingents of scientific
cadres, the amounts of state budget financing and other sources
of finance for our country's science for the practical
attainment of the strategic goals of scientific and technical
development.
-- That Russia's government eliminates the prevailing
imbalances in the remuneration of scientific and other workers
in the country.
-- That funds are ensured for the financing of state
budget-financed scientific research organizations at the level
necessary to maintain their productivity.
-- That in 1994 the country's organs of legislative and
executive power find methods and means to prevent any
further decline of the science-intensiveness potential of
Russia's national product and ensure preferential development
for our country's science.
-- That Russia's government ensures state budget financing
for the country's science in 1994 at a level of at least
2.3-2.5 percent of the country's GNP and ensures conditions for
further raising this indicator in the next few years. That
the decline of the proportion of scientific associates among the
other categories of hired workers employed by state organization
be halted.
-- Without excessively diminishing the importance of broad
international cooperation, it is necessary to create all
conditions (salaries, equipment, libraries) to ensure that
our scientists work effectively in their own country.
3. Guidelines for Politicians in the Education Sphere
The Russian mathematician Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevskiy,
while holding the post of rector of Kazan University, frequently
addressed students with speeches about man's purpose and his
creative potential. Man, he emphasized, "was born to be master,
conqueror, and king of nature. But the wisdom with which he
ought to rule from the throne he has inherited is not given to
him by birth; it is acquired by study." Lobachevskiy was a
confirmed advocate of the development of all gifts of the
individual in the process of training and education. Only thus
will man develop as an individual and will expand the horizons
of his intellectual might.
The scientific and technical progress influences not only
equipment and technology. It promotes the headlong progress of
productive forces as a whole and man's development, it demands
comprehensive and complete utilization of man's abilities which
is impossible to achieve without improving education.
Spiritual and intellectual perfection are not automatically
acquired. Britain has the Open University with 250 branches,
Germany has the Westphalian Correspondence University, Japan has
the Radio University, Israel has the Everyman University, and so
on. It is time for Russia to seriously tackle the radical
renewal of the entire reserve of knowledge and intellectual
potential.
Our society's reform must presuppose a fundamental reform of
the education system, beginning with the objectives of
education, its economic foundation, and the management of the
education system, and ending with the system for training and
retraining of specialists, the schools structure, and the
content and technology of training.
The development of modern society is determined mainly by
the
scientific and technical revolution. This takes the form of the
vast flow of information, the rapidly changing production
technologies, and the equally rapid obsolescence of the
knowledge and habits of specialists at almost all levels. Any
country's position in the world community is directly associated
with its achievements in the elaboration of qualitatively new
technologies and activity systems. Autonomous thought and
the ability to make decisions are irreversibly demanded of each
member of society. Today's mass schooling is in principle
not geared to the cultivation of these qualities in individuals.
The utilitarianism which dominates society has resulted in a
considerable dehumanization of culture and has destroyed many
spiritual values, offering almost nothing in exchange. The
traditions underlying the formation of previous generations'
spiritual world and the ability to reproduce the people's
culture have been either largely broken or altogether lost.
Today, following the loss of the time link and the world's
integrity as necessary conditions for culture's reproduction and
development, the school's most important task is to
restore continuity between generations and implant in the school
pupils' minds the historical roots linking them with the past
history of their own people and the whole of mankind.
Unfortunately, over the last few years the prestige of
secondary education has fallen to its lowest level ever in 20th
century history. Polls in 1993 showed that only 20 percent are
fully satisfied with the standards of education, 70 percent of
teachers and parents believe that schools are in the deepest of
crises, 50 percent of teachers are not satisfied with their own
training and work, and 85 percent of young specialists believe
that the education they have acquired is not in line with the
latest achievements of science. The following are identified as
some of the causes of the crisis in schools: the surplus
principle for finance and material backup, the declining value
of education, the weakening of discipline and law and order in
the country, bureaucracy in the management of education, and the
low standing of teaching as a profession.
The situation in higher education is equally
complex, even though selfless and knowledgeable
professionals are working there. Thanks to their heroic efforts,
the decline has been halted to some degree. The edict "On
Measures To Support State VUZ's [higher educational
institutions]" has been signed, giving them land for indefinite
free use.
Nonetheless, Russia's VUZ's are losing young lecturers, the
prestige of this profession is declining, and the socioeconomic
situation of scientific, pedagogical, and research cadres has
deteriorated.
The depth of the crisis in education is determined not by
the
state's poverty but by the inability to match the citizens'
requirements, demands, and wishes with the potential of the
country's teachers corps and the standards of programs.
Adequate funding and the replacement of fundamentally old
schools will not produce quality education. It can be produced
only by the appropriate content of education, the technology of
training, and the professional standards of teacher trainers.
There is a need for a state strategy for the
development of education, elaborated in detail. A very
important step has been taken -- the Law on Education has been
adopted. This law has emancipated and deideologized the
schools. But it is still in our schools that we are less
prepared for freedom and creativity than in any other sector of
production, science, and culture.
Work must be done along two avenues: scientific
substantiation of all fundamental provisions of reform and
elaboration of appropriate legislation.
The centralized financing of schools from the state budget
has become an objective hindrance to their development. Of
course, even now part of the expenditure should be borne by the
state budget. This applies primarily to capital construction.
The other part should be covered by municipal funds. Russia
does have such experience. It ought to be revived in the law on
local self-government. A great role in the financing of schools
can be played by local education funds and school supervisory
councils, provided a sensible system of tax benefits is
elaborated.
Fundamental changes are also necessary in the management of
the education system. Many relevant provisions have been made
in the Law on Education. There is a need to considerably
reduce the management apparatus and to fundamentally change its
functions.
Hitherto all changes in the management system have been
implemented by management officials themselves and in their own
interests. The total number of managers per pupil has been
steadily growing. The new management system must be structured
for the children's benefit, with a view to their more
comfortable life and best possible development.
Schools must become fully autonomous in all regards and must
be fully responsible for the quality of children's training and
education. The quality of training could be monitored by
supervisory councils using tests which determine whether
knowledge and habits are in line with state standards. This
will enable schools to become a self-regulating system, with
self-development providing the basis for the mechanism of their
functioning. In these conditions, schools will begin to
actively form the best possible infrastructure and educational
environment for their pupils.
Without putting matters off until the more distant future,
resolute steps ought to be taken already in 1994-1995 toward a
more efficient utilization of higher education's educational and
scientific potential and an expansion of already existing forms
of integration between science and higher education. This means
fundamentally new forms of mutual relations between science and
VUZ's -- the creation of scientific education complexes, the
preparation of joint scientific programs and projects, and the
training of pupils for schools and VUZ's.
Transformations in schools -- both general educational
and higher educational -- must be geared to the awakening of
cognitive activity in each individual and to teaching him how to
acquire knowledge autonomously.
4. Culture in Russia
It can be said that Russia's cultural figures now enjoy more
creative freedom and political independence than ever before in
its thousand-year long history. And yet, these figures
increasingly often proclaim that the last few years have become
the era of "the country's deculturization," "the denigration of
talent," and the impoverishment of writers, painters, humanists,
and museum workers to a level already approaching that of the
Civil War and Great Patriotic War years.
On the other hand, Minister of Culture Ye. Sidorov shocks
the
country by announcing that about 80 percent of icons in Russia
have been exported in the last few years. If truth be said, it
is hard to imagine who has calculated this, and how, seeing that
records of cultural assets in the country have always been badly
kept and nowadays are in a state of total disarray. Book
publishing statistics in our country are also deceptive, but
specialists claim -- not altogether groundlessly -- that the
works of Pushkin, Blok, L. Tolstoy, and Gogol are today
published in smaller print runs than during the years of
postrevolutionary devastation or after World War II. Never
before have so many cultural monuments been destroyed in Russia,
and it is impossible to imagine that the state budget was "not
in a position" to appropriate a few million rubles to restore
the monument on Chekhov's grave at Novodevichye Cemetery, which
is today badly in need of repair.
A multitude of people -- from the president down to the
merchants specializing in the marketing of folk art and craft
products -- assure Russia of respect for the originality of
national culture. But television's weekly popular education
programs abound exclusively with foreign titles.
A "top level" decision has been made in Russia to elaborate
a
program for the privatization of culture and art institutions
(theaters, museums, buildings, country estates), taking into
account the interests of the legitimate heirs of their former
owners. And yet that selfsame document "decrees" a ban on any
privatization whatsoever in the cultural sphere. The president
has prescribed a policy of returning to the church all buildings
and other valuables originally intended for religious purposes.
He has also promulgated an edict granting the status of
national cultural monument to a series of especially outstanding
cultural institutions, which would render inviolable the
collection of, for example, the Tretyakov Gallery which owns a
huge collection of icons, or the Russian State Library with its
unique collection of religious books and manuscripts....
There is a vast multitude of similar contradictions in plans
and actions, and it is increasingly difficult to answer the
question: What has happened and what is happening to Russia's
cultural policy, and is there any cultural policy at
all?
Our country has already crossed the line marking the start
of
an era of historical ruin, comparable in scale with the
Tatar-Mongol invasion. The "culture problem" is far broader
than the problem of the present political power, of economic
reform, and of state reorganization: The nation must find the
strength and methods to comprehend and resolve it regardless of
what the authorities might do. Especially since culture is more
viable than all political regimes, ideologies, and states. It
is a question only of the price and methods of culture's
self-preservation as a condition for the nation's survival.
The questions of preserving the monuments of the Soviet era
and the cultural heritage of those years as a whole are being
raised especially urgently (maybe deliberately?) today. But
no matter what political, economic, social, and any other
renewal may be yearned for by any country, its desire can be
satisfied only by reliance on the past. It was said a
long, long time ago: "They fire at the past and kill the
future." But the process of "overcoming the past" and "bringing
the fatherland's culture back to the mainstream of world
development" soon enough took a "special path" again. This has
proved to be the path of leveling the fatherland's culture.
Politics has once again, stealthily and "on the quiet,"
assumed the functions of culture, deciding once again on
the latter's behalf what from the past is suitable for the
"civilized society" model and what has to be excised,
cauterized, and ridiculed.
The stormy changes which occurred in our society in the last
few years did not result in any noticeable creative
productivity. Spiritual life is flooded with nothing but
the monotonous flow of previously "forbidden fruit." Literary
journals are slowly sinking into oblivion. It is not so much
that viewers are deserting the theater, but that the theater is
deserting viewers: It has nothing to say. National
cinematography is in a state of coma. The humanities and social
sciences are ravaged. Philosophers have been squeezed out by
chiromancers and sundry other charlatans.
The "former Soviet intelligentsia" is increasingly often
sighing: It was better in the past, they dictated to us but at
least we got paid. Until quite recently Federico Fellini's
reflection was considered a bad joke, but now people seem to
comprehend its meaning: "I fancy the order which caused
suffering to artists in the past: A pope, a duke, or a viceroy
commissioned a work and did not feed the artist if the work was
not completed. Had it not been for those tyrants, we would not
have enjoyed the hundreds of great works." In actual
fact, freedom as such does not in any way guarantee the
flourishing of creativity. Nowadays many people repeat the
old truism: Poverty is the worst form of slavery. Creative
people are becoming hostages of commercialism; the naive
political faith of many intellectuals in politicians has proved
fatal: How many notable figures are now silent, having been
traumatized by the fact that they perceived as beacons some
politicians who proved to be nothing but deceptive
will-o'-the-wisps.
At the same time, in a situation whereby we are more than
likely not only to experience a buildup of catastrophic tension
in all spheres of society's life but also to see the people
driven into apathy and listlessness, right up to the point where
the desire and actual will to live are dulled and society is
paralyzed because nothing is sacred and mandatory for people --
in this situation we are beginning to see the emergence of a
stratum of people with the qualities and functions of a new
intelligentsia.
The intelligentsia is not affiliated to any political
stream,
it does not serve either the state, or the parties, or the
church, or even the people. Intelligence as a human
quality does not speak on anyone's behalf but its own, based on
the theoretical principles of knowledge.
The theoretical nature of the new intelligentsia's judgments
does not at all mean that it is aloof from the realities of
life. Now, for example, it cannot adopt an indifferent attitude
toward the Russian Government. In this regard, the
intelligentsia does not fit anywhere within the range of
viewpoints held by various political groups and various social
strata of the population. From a sounder point of view it can
be seen that a change of government and of authority in general
will inevitably result in replacing the immature, inconsistent,
at times simply foolish and clumsy democracy -- but democracy
nonetheless -- with a quasi-democracy. This is the ground on
which intellectuals determine their attitude toward the
government today. But from the fundamental position, the
present situation calls more for understanding rather than for
approval or condemnation. To comprehend and to announce
its conclusions to society -- this is the function of the new
intelligentsia. Politicians, intellectuals, parties, and
movements want success, a member of the intelligentsia wants the
truth. By its very nature the new intelligentsia needs, more
than anything else, the fullest possible democracy, and it is
the one that can utilize it best of all. This means that it is
capable of being a kind of regulator of the degree and form of
democracy.
The new intelligentsia is also the "bearer" of optimism in a
society of skepticism and cynicism, of gloom and pessimism. Its
optimism is based on its ability to perceive the contemporary
social processes in the context of world problems and their
history. Any "party approach" evaluates events and their
consequences in terms of years or decades, while the new
intelligentsia's supraparty and apolitical approach enables it
to think in terms of the world and of centuries. The new kind
of intelligentsia presupposes an independent morality. It
scorns moral prejudices and the dominant spirit of the time. In
the conditions of "generally accepted" deceipt and camouflage,
it is capable of sincerity, of the salutary self-restriction to
nothing but implacably pointing out any manifestation of
immorality to others and, in all other instances, imputes to
dissidents nothing but intellectual confusion.
The intelligentsia's morality rules out the most permanent
disease of intellectuals -- egotism, and it preaches the
principle: Love not me but mine.
At a time when malicious intent, selfishness, and deception
in actions are becoming an everyday occurrence, the morality of
a member of the intelligentsia calls for inaction as the last
means of demonstrating disagreement.
This very intelligentsia will become the "third force"
which,
in conditions of mass hostility to all parties, programs, and
everything else that divides and embitters, will mediate in
relations between the people and the authorities, will
comprehend and explain their role and limits, and will bring
about a mutual sensible moderation. We see the role of
prosecutor being played even by many "generals" of literature,
the arts, the humanities, and the social sciences who, until
quite recently, strove to grab a seat on honorary presidiums as
close as possible to Politburo members, glorified "socialist
realism," and headed creative unions, scientific research
institutes, and newspapers and journals. We see such a great
multitude of cultural figures who had always been "against" not
only "mentally" but also openly, that it is already hard to
imagine who was ever "in favor" and who produced the thousands
of novels, poems, movies, and monographs comprising "the world's
most advanced socialist culture."
For the time being, many of our intellectuals are living
just
for the day, carried away by an exaggerated impression of their
own importance in the fatherland's spiritual ruin. This is what
the authorities value. But time is passing, and they need
more and more people capable of building rather than
destroying. There are very few of them and they, made
wiser by experience, are trying to keep their distance from the
authorities. This offers that much more scope for those who are
diligent in seeking the blessings of the powers that be. But
any authority's "special treatment" of the "masters of the word"
has always and everywhere been like a royal court's relations
with jesters.
Russia's geopolitical position is such that it enables it to
occupy a most befitting niche in the planet's community in the
21st century -- befitting its people, its culture, and its
history; it can turn into a really first-rate power. This is
important for all, because it will guarantee people's stability
of existence, prosperous life, and opportunity to effectively
exercise their own intellectual and moral potential. This goal
is attainable. The nation must be aware of its own dignity, it
must be confident that it is capable of achieving a lot, that it
has not been cast on history's scrap heap as some people try to
imply. This applies to all spheres of human activity, but
especially to sophisticated instruments of manifesting national
self-awareness like science, education, and culture.
5. The Growing Role of the Orthodox Church
Russian statehood is just one century older than the Russian
Orthodox Church, if we take as our starting point the date when
Christianity was adopted as the state religion of Rus by Kievan
Grand Prince Vladimir in A.D. 988. Nonetheless, it was this
step that largely promoted the cause of Russian state building.
Simultaneously with Christianity, Rus also adopted Byzantine
Law which had incorporated all the best points of Roman Law
which had been further fecundated by the Church's conciliarist
experience over the centuries. The state importance of the
Church for Rus during the Kievan period of its history was
largely determined by the fact that, to a considerable extent,
the Church was also the judiciary. As a matter of fact, right
until the Conciliar Code was compiled in 1649, church rules
often filled in the gaps in state laws comprising the princely
jurisdiction.
It is understandable that this great importance of the
episcopate's judicial power was based primarily on its
moral authority. During the pre-Mongol period, the
metropolitan and bishops often had to reconcile princes at times
of civil strife. Essentially, the Orthodox Church at the
time played the role of a most important factor of
national unity.
Let us recall that during the sad days of the October (1993)
crisis, it was the Orthodox Church that again took on this
historical role. And it is not to blame for the fact that the
voice of reason was not heeded.
It is necessary to dwell on the following fact. Grand Prince
Ivan Danilovich Kalita of Muscovy invited Metropolitan Petr of
Kiev and All Rus to settle in his capital. The foundations of
the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God were
laid in the Kremlin. This made Moscow the permanent center of
the Russian Orthodox Church, giving it at the time the
significance of a nationwide center.
The 25 years during which the Russian Church was ruled by
Prelate Aleksiy (1354-1378) were the time of Russia's
unification [sobiraniye]. During the minority of Grand
Prince Dmitriy Ivanovich, the head of the Russian Church was de
facto ruler of the Grand Principality of Muscovy. His missions
to the Golden Horde produced a lengthy respite from devastating
raids. And when in 1380 the Tatar warlord Mamay moved against
Rus, it was Grand Prince Dmitriy of Muscovy who, having been
blessed by the Venerable Sergiy Radonezhskiy, succeeded in
bringing together a united Russian host to deliver the Land of
Russia from destruction.
Russia's history offers numerous instructive examples of
state organization. In parallel with the monarchical nature of
power in the majority of Russian lands during the period
preceding the formation of the unified Moscow State, we can also
see the experience of the lengthy existence of the Novgorod
Republic, where the three branches of power -- governor
[posadnik] (the administration), archbishop (spiritual
leadership and a large proportion of judicial procedures), and
prince (protection from external danger) -- had their origins in
the expression of the people's will.
G.P. Fedotov, the remarkable Russian thinker from our
century, perceived Novgorod -- the "Republic of Holy Sophia" as
he described it -- as the prototype of Russia's future
democratic structure, underpinned by the primacy of Christian
values.
But no matter what attitude we may adopt toward Russia's
history following the unification of Rus under the authority of
the grand prince of Muscovy, it is necessary to admit that
the Orthodox Church continued to play an important role in
the consolidation of Russian statehood.
The 17th century proved to be especially important. The Time
of Troubles immediately following the reign of Boris Godunov,
which was marked by a series of disasters and mainly a
devastating famine, again brought forth the Orthodox Church as
the most important factor of national self-awareness, without
which it would have been impossible to pursue state
building in Russia. Thus, the Church's blessing of the
Nizhniy Novgorod resistance made it possible to preserve Russian
statehood in 1612.
In 1613 the Holy Synod, in other words the episcopate of the
Russian Church and leading representatives of its clergy,
launched the initiative of convening an Assembly of the Land
to elect a head of the Russian state. This assembly,
at which the estates of the Russian Land were represented, was
an original form of representation of the people, unknown
in the rest of Europe. After all, the representatives of
the estates gathered at the Assembly of the Land not to play
political games or exact privileges from the supreme authority,
but to answer the question of how the Russian state should be
structured. At that time the election of Mikhail, the first
czar from the Romanov dynasty, was conditioned by the fact that
his father, the prestigious boyar Fedor Romanov, who had been
forced to become a monk by Boris Godunov and later became
Metropolitan Filaret of Rostov and Yaroslavl (patriarch of all
Rus in 1619-1633), was an oustanding spiritual leader of the
building of the emerging Russian statehood. It is no accident
that thereafter, and throughout the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich,
Assemblies of the Land were convened by the supreme authority
virtually every year to ensure that its initiatives could be
backed by the Church's authority and become an expression of the
people's aspirations.
A special importance in the cause of state building attaches
to the 1649 Assembly of the Land, which compiled the Conciliary
Code which laid the foundation for the codification of Russian
laws.
When Peter the Great started implementing the transformation
of Russian statehood on the principles of enlightened
absolutism, he assigned a special role to the church
administration. Having abolished the patriarchate and halted
the convening of Holy Synods as the supreme organs of church
power, he showed concern for forming a permanent supreme
administration of spiritual forces which was named the Holy
Governing Synod. In parallel with the Governing Senate, which
promulgated imperial laws on behalf of the supreme power and was
also the supreme judicial organ in the country, the Synod -- if
the monarch was unable to exercise his rights and duties --
exercised supreme power in the country until such time as the
legitimate claimant to the throne was sworn in as head of the
Russian state. It must be especially noted that the Russian
[Church] hierarchy played an extremely fruitful role in
lawmaking activity, in which it was brought by the supreme state
power, also in the 18th century.
Later on, when a representative organs of the people -- the
State Duma -- emerged in Russia in 1905, it was no rare
occurrence to see among its deputies bishops and clergy of the
Russian Orthodox Church, elected mainly by the peasant strata
which had entrusted them with the protection of their interests
and the expression of their aspirations.
The 1917-1918 Local Assembly became an important landmark in
the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, restoring the
Patriarchate of All Russia and the principle of conciliarism in
church life. Its opening coincided with preparations for the
Constituent Assembly, which was intended to establish new
principles of Russian statehood. In this context, the [Local]
Assembly had a working section on "The Legal Status of the
Orthodox Church in the Russian State," which based the documents
it elaborated on the fact that "the Orthodox Church is a most
sacred object for the vast majority of the Russian people" and
therefore the state must give it legal protection and patronage.
The country's historical fate during the postrevolution
decades developed in such a way that the Orthodox Church was not
only deprived of its traditional historical role but, under the
slogan of its "separation from the state," was also subjected to
the most blatant persecution; that was a time when its paramount
concern was the problem of survival in an atmosphere of
artificially implanted militant atheism. But, despite
everything, the Russian Church managed to survive and, with the
passage of time, even to accumulate a certain amount of social
potential.
The word "crisis" is nowadays one of the most frequently
used
words in the mass media. But let us ask ourselves: What sort
of crisis is Russia experiencing now? Economic? It would be
strange that a country with such natural and industrial
potential would be incapable of swiftly dealing with it.
Political? The multiparty system, which is capable of
producing a serious struggle for power, is still at its
embryonic stage, as it were, in our country. Nonetheless, we are
indeed at a stage of crisis at present. And this crisis
is moral.
The main question facing Russia now is: What should be
the moral guidelines of its future state building? This
question has to be answered by the people themselves. It would
be appropriate to recall the traditional form of dialogue
between the supreme power and the people by convening an
Assembly of the Land which could comprise authoritative
representatives of all social and professional groups and the
traditional religious confessions in Russia. This Assembly
would not claim state power and would not compete with the
existing representative organ. It will not adopt any acts for
mandatory execution. But it will be able to identify the
sore spots in our people's life today, on which those who have
been tasked with state building in Russia should focus attention
in the first place.
As regards the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church
in this Assembly, this will not mean that it is regaining any
state functions or privileges. But, being an authoritative
social institution in the country today, it will thus fulfill
its purpose and will help the Russian people to preserve
their identity and create their state.
The government and the new Federal Assembly are called upon,
in the very near future and jointly with the Russian Orthodox
Church, to compile a program for the restoration and
refurbishing of cathedrals, churches, and monasteries.
An end should be put to all attempts at religious invasion
from outside, no matter how plausible their motivations might
appear. Missionary activity by foreign citizens in Russia must
be legislatively regulated.
Section III: III. Stabilization of the Socioeconomic
Situation in the Country
An analysis of the socioeconomic situation in the 14 former
Union republics of the USSR by international organizations
indicates that these countries are on the threshold of "a
large-scale social explosion."
The incomes of workers and employees have declined by 21-27
percent in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and by 59-60 percent in
Kyryzstan and Tajikistan. The rural population's incomes have
declined still further: by 33-35 percent in Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan, and by 64-70 percent in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova,
and Tajikistan.
Wage increases cannot keep up with the steady growth of
consumer goods prices. (Footnote) (According to EEC data, the
increase of the population's incomes in the CIS is lagging
behind inflation, and consequently real wages have dropped by
30-50 percent.)
The situation on the market for foodstuffs is especially
alarming. Even the high prices have failed to solve the problem
of normal supplies of meat, vegetable oil, and sugar for the
population. Consequently, "a sizeable proportion of the
population in the CIS is threatened by famine. Millions of
people eat irregularly and there is excessive consumption of
bread and potatoes. The situation is fast deteriorating,"
UNICEF emphasizes, "and three-fourths of the population in many
regions are living in poverty."
The production of consumer goods has significantly declined
in the CIS countries, including foodstuffs by 22 percent, light
industry goods by 17 percent, and articles for cultural and
everyday life use by 14 percent.
The commissioning of housing in the CIS as a whole has
declined by 27 percent, of general educational schools by 33
percent, of preschool institutions by 32 percent, and of
hospitals by 37 percent.
There has been an acute deterioration in the health care
system: The appropriated funds are sufficient to cover just
one-third of requirements.
A "new" phenomenon, long-forgotten by generations of
Russians, has emerged -- unemployment. It is expected
that the army of spare labor in the CIS will have reached 12
million persons in the first quarter of 1994.
The number of recorded crimes has also increased sharply in
the Community states -- by 30 percent on average. The highest
increase is in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan by 50 percent, in
Azerbaijan and Armenia by 33 percent, and in Russia by 28
percent.
Thus, not a single one of the new sovereign states on
the USSR's territory has been able to guarantee the life and
safety of the majority of its population.
The absence of guarantees creates a fundamentally new
sociopolitical situation in the CIS countries, where residents
in the past felt that they were citizens of a great state.
These new conditions will dominate the development of
sociopolitical events in the CIS also in 1994.
It is not only the population but also the authorities that
feel uneasy in the face of new realities. The problem of
consolidating power, which is in a state of unstable equilibrium
in the overwhelming majority of states, will be the main problem
in 1994.
The reforms being implemented by the authorities of the
sovereign states are inadequately backed by the population, as
can be seen from the Eurostat data (see Table 1).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Table 1. Question: What will market economics bring to your country? |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Country |Benefit |Or Harm [see footnote] |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Russia |37 |44 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Moldova |41 |50 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Latvia |48 |36 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Ukraine |34 |46 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Belarus |32 |56 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Armenia |31 |56 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|(Footnote) (These data correspond fully with the results of the All-Russia r-|
|eferendum, when only 34.9 percent of the total population approved the socia-|
|l policy implemented by the Russian Federation president and government.) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus, almost everywhere (with the exception of Georgia and
Estonia) the majority of the population expect "harm" rather
than "benefit" from market economics. In actual fact we can see
that, first, society is split as regards the essence of reforms
and, second, there is a low level of approval for them.
Western political scientists are seeking the causes of this
phenomenon. Will Hutton (THE GUARDIAN), for example, having
analyzed the processes in the former Union, draws the following
conclusion: "Hardly ever have economists been so involved in
the sphere of politics with an opportunity to compile plans and
programs which are far removed from the cultural, social, and
political context in which they exist. The process of reforms
has evolved into a technical problem and its success depends on
the existence of political `will.' It is hard to imagine a more
simplistic concept."
This view is not altogether groundless.
The question is: How can sociopolitical processes in the
CIS countries develop further with today's situation as a
starting point? There is no doubt that they will have their
specific aspects everywhere. But there are also common trends.
The complexities of the problems of authority are largely
conditioned by the following contradiction. The political
forces (Footnote) (Meaning the Democratic Congress [Democratic
Russia, Rukh, Berlin, and so on] and the People's Fronts) which
brought the incumbent leaders of sovereign states to the summits
of power, proved capable of destroying the former one-party
political system, but have so far been unable to create a new
pluralistic system. As destroying parties, they did not enjoy a
mighty social base. The current need of all CIS leaders for
such a social base clashes with the course of reforms being
implemented, which harm the vital interests of a large
proportion of the population.
The consolidation of democratic power is hindered by the
marginalization of society and the disintegration of its social
structure. The "crystallization" of the social structure can
have a different base in different countries: nationalism,
religious fundamentalism, patriotism, corporate principles, and
so on.
UNICEF and WHO have forecast massive social explosions on
the
ground of dissatisfaction with reforms. The socioeconomic
tension in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan
has shifted to the level of territorial-ethnic conflicts. Such
conflicts could intensify in Russia and Ukraine. In the Baltic
countries these conflicts have been moved to the plane of
relations with Russia and turned into the problem of the
Russian-speaking population.
Similar scenarios in the same or different forms are
possible
in virtually any one of the 14 former Union republics.
1. Stabilization and Recovery of the Economy
Do we have a chance to revive the economy in the majority's
interests? Yes, we do. The only problem is to switch on the
mechanism for rational utilization of Russia's national wealth:
its intellectual potential and its natural resources.
Privatization or nationalization, plan or market -- these
cannot be examined as the ends of the new economic
policy. They are only the means.
It is necessary not only to simply proclaim the value of
man,
his dignity, and his inalienable rights and freedom, but also to
guarantee them economically for the overwheleming majority of
citizens. We cannot allow ourselves to "consume" the heritage
of our grandchildren and ruin our country by selling off the raw
materials, land, and intellectual property, reducing the level
of production and the standards of morality, education, health
care, and ecological safety, and allowing crime to rise.
Therefore, the following are suggested as end objectives of
the new economic course:
1. To ensure not just Russia's survival as a unified
autonomous state, but also its rebirth.
2. To occupy a leading position in the group of the world
community's leader-countries.
3. To ensure a befitting quality of life according to world
standards.
Such an effective economic course would require a
substantial
revision of federal priorities, a sharp increase
in the proportion of production investment, enhancement of
their efficiency, and implementation of state regulation of
structural changes in production.
The distribution of labor, material, and financial resources
between the civilian and military spheres is one of the most
important national economic proportions. In view of all the
peculiarities of Russia's geopolitical situation, it is
important to bear in mind that military expenditures in
developed countries account for less than 5 percent of GNP. A
desire to reach approximately the same degree of nonproductive
utilization of resources in Russia by the end of this century
would reduce to a minimum the negative economic consequences of
military expenditures.
The short-term plans should be to ensure the
economy's stabilization with priority development for the
sectors geared to satisfying primary vital needs. At the same
time, investment opportunities for the retooling of production
should be boosted.
The medium-term plans should aim for structural
changes and renewal of the base resource-saving technologies,
which will be largely geared to the consumer market.
The long-term plans should be to implement a
transition to an innovation economy, when acceptable losses in
the rate of economic growth should be the price to paid for the
pursuit of a policy aimed at social progress and ecological
safety.
A program for the economy's revival must provide guidance
for actions. Its coordinated principles and guidelines should
provide the foundation for the authorities' legislative
activity. Only then will the economy, "working" within a
legislative framework which promotes its development in the
interests of the majority of citizens, become really free.
In order to gain the people's trust, the government is bound
to publicize its plans and the progress in their
fulfillment. Its activity should be judged not only by the
improved quality of life but also by the protection of the
interests of all of society's citizens, which should become the
norm.
The question of the optimal pace of transformations remains
as acute as ever. This pace must not be arbitrarily set, it
ought to correspond with society's real potential rather than
with the wishes of the initiators of reforms. The experience of
Russia and other countries testifies that it is impossible to
effect privatization and introduce the market at a stroke, or to
create within a year or two a quantity of private farms which
could succeed in solving the food problem. At least 10 years
will be needed to modernize indistry, transportation, and
agriculture.
Any delay in the implementation of pressing transformations
is equally impermissible.
There is no need to conceal from the people the full gravity
of the situation prevailing in the country. The best possible
way for extrication from the crisis can be found only by facing
up to the truth, otherwise we will once more end up with
numerous promises followed by explanations why they were not
honored.
So far there has been no success in halting or even slowing
down the slump in production which has been going on for
three years now. It is approaching 50 percent in industry
(in other words, production is being almost halved, which would
bring it down to the level of the 1960's). December 1993 alone
saw a 12-percent slump. The opposition's claims that the
country is being deindustrialized reflect not only the
sharply contested election campaign but also the real
"development" trends. The situation is equally alarming
in agriculture and especially in breeding
stock, where production has declined by 42 percent.
The main harbinger of disaster is the fact that the
foundations of growth have been undermined, since capital
investments in the national economy have undergone such sharp
and manyfold reduction, and the renewal of equipment and
technology has been halted.
The slump in production also leads to a decline of the
population's living standards and a sharp deterioration of the
population's physical conditions of existence. According to
data from Russia's Sanitation and Epidemiology Service, 20
percent of the population suffer from energy famine due to
inadequate nutrition. It is not in vain that people are already
talking about the problem of physical survival.
A reduction of capital investments and defense expenditures
will only partly soften the blow on living standards, but it is
fraught, first with accelerated slump of production and, second,
with a decline of the country's defense capability and security.
The sharp exacerbation of the foodstuffs crisis in the last
two-three years was conditioned not only by the decline of the
production of agricultural output. Former and existing
kolkhozes and sovkhozes and their transformed production
structures are in a most serious financial situation; they are
overstocked with output which either fails to reach the consumer
or, having made its way to him, its price has increased manyfold.
It would appear that the following causes have led to the
sector's stagnation:
- The sharp and sizeable reduction of all types of state
support for the agro-industrial complex and the elimination of
the state system for material and technical supplies.
- The disruption of the equivalence of agriculture's
intesectoral
and interregional relations with resource-supplying and
servicing sectors.
- The collapse of organizational structures with organized
production and the attempts to replace them with new structures
without the necessary conditions for their effective operations.
- The decline of scientific and technical standards in the
agro-industrial sector and the degradation of science through
inadequate funding, which deprives the agro-industrial complex
of any development prospects.
Energetic measures of state protectionism will be
required in the next few years so as to develop and economically
consolidate the agro-industrial complex.
The sociopolitical situation. Although a
sizeable proportion of the population remains politically
indifferent, the last few years have seen an intensive political
polarization of forces in the country, which has brought
forth the growing threat of civil war. The events in
October 1993 most graphically demonstrated this danger. When
analyzing the causes, it is impossible to allow simplistic
interpretations and reduce everything to just the activity of
extremist elements. A considerable role in the 3-4 October
events was played by the calamitous situation and despair of
many people, whose living standards have sharply declined and
whose life's aspirations have collapsed.
The causes also include instances of insults against the
national and patriotic feelings of Russia's population, which
are frequently encountered in the mass media. If the word
"patriot" becomes an insult, if Russia's history is grossly
discredited, if the national culture's world-standard
achievements are denigrated as being third-rate, and if the idea
of the people's inadequacy is openly proclaimed, this will
provoke racial and national enmity. An end must be put to
this by using the force of the law.
The Federal Assembly can serve society's sociopolitical
consolidation and the pooling of efforts by different political
forces. There are great opportunities here, since the current
polarization stems not so much from objective processes but from
subjective efforts by different political parties and movements.
2. Structural Reorganization of Russia's Economy
The crisis in the socioeconomic system is directly reflected
in the structural and investment crises.
Need for and Problems of Structural Transformations
Structural imbalances are the consequence of the economic
development strategy geared mainly toward maxium growth of the
state's resources potential and its defense capability.
But a noticeable sectoral differentiation is occurring
against the general background of the slump in production in the
Russian Federation in 1992-1993. Specifically, there are
substantial reductions of the volumes of output in the light and
food industries -- the basis of the consumer complex.
The long-term task is to radically renew technologies and
switch to the science-intensive and ecologically safe variety of
economic growth. The saving and the more rational and more
efficient utilization of investment resources are highly
important for the structural restructuring. This presupposes a
"revision" of the resource potential of the investment complex.
Savings of investment resources are practicable, for
example:
- in the machine bulding complex via reliance on end
products and consumer goods;
- in the metallurgy complex via sharp reduction of demand for
series-produced metal output and the switching of metal from the
defense complex to civilian machine building;
- in the fuel and energy complex via more rational selection of
projects for the extraction, transportation, and thoroughness of
refining oil, gas, and coal.
The policy of state regulation of investments could yield a
positive effect subject to "offensive" and "defensive" measures
embracing all sectors of the economy and maintaining its
structural and technological integrity. State support must
encourage the development of high-tech, science-intensive, and
competitive production.
The strategic line of the sectoral structure's restructuring
must be the consistent renewal of sectoral technology.
Priorities must be determined accordingly. It is primarily
necessary:
- to modernize the production, technical, and scientific
base in the primary sectors of the fuel and energy complex,
machine building, agriculture, and transportation via the
utilization of state and foreign investments, including those
from nearby foreign countries;
- to create export-oriented production in machine building,
primarily on the basis of leading military enterprises, and to
ensure the development of machine tool and instruments
production, instrument making, electronics, and electrical
engineering;
- to create import-replacing production in the light industry
and
reorientate (replace) the weakened production-sharing links;
- to ensure a reduction of the losses of energy and timber
resources and agricultural raw materials via high-tech
processing.
In the process of structural reorientation, the state
cannot be allowed to retreat from the management of economic
development. It is called upon to elaborate the strategy of
the conversion of military production and the preservation and
efficient utilization of the military-industrial potential; to
pursue a regional policy coupled with the structural
restructuring of industry; to accumulate material, technical,
and financial resources for the development of the economy's
social and cultural sectors (ensuring the social orientation of
reforms). It is necessary to take stock of industry's
production, resource, and technology base.
The transition to the system of market relations has
created the most complex survival conditions for virtually all
industrial production. The prolonged absence of
formulated priorities in sectoral policy and of a considered
regional policy has also aggravated the difficulties in the
modernization of Russia's industrial structure. In the
conditions of market relations, certain advantages have been
gained by those who have managed to achieve the narrowest
possible specialization in production and have then brought
their output up to modern standards. Of course, in this case we
are talking about a rational perception of the problems of
narrow specialization in production, which is not tantamount to
monopolism. For example, no other country in the world
practices the utilization of basic production waste by raising
such waste to the level of consumer goods. It is only in our
country that the production of consumer goods as a way to
utilize basic production waste from the country's industrial
giants has become dominant.
The future production of consumer goods by base and defense
sectors would appear especially problematic in the light of the
lifting of restrictions on the importation of foreign-made
consumer goods and of the planned commodity
"intervention." It is easy to forecast a crash in the
event of nonspecialized production of consumer goods: A crisis
of overproduction will occur. In these conditions it is worth
noting the possibility of manufacturing "dual purpose" articles.
This will enable the national industry and science to actively
compete for consumers at the products market and, at the same
time, will encourage the utilization and improvement of our own
technological potential.
In addition to the fact that industrial enterprises in the
base sectors will become suppliers of material and social
consumer goods for the domestic market, they are also mass
consumers of these goods in the conditions of exacerbating
economic crisis in the country. What we mean is the adverse
trend toward the barter of their output for consumer goods, in
other words the withdrawal of sizeable consignments of goods
from the market.
Unfortunately, the curtailment of supply is gathering pace.
Consumer goods are at present actively bought for
intradepartmental distribution. The economy's
liberalization by the methods of "shock therapy" has resulted in
major economic and political errors and massive decline of the
population's living standards. A catastrophic distortion
has been allowed to occur in the consumer sphere: As a result
of the reduction of effective demand, noawadays only one person
out of 1,000 can allow himself, subject to rigid savings from
the family budget, to buy the cheapest of refrigerators or
television sets. This imposes restrictive bounds on the
progressive structure of demand and supply (production).
Some people think that there has been and there is no
alternative to the chosen course. Of course, initially the
situation was extremely depressing and precluded any swift and
serious progress. But the weakening of the economy, the
disintegration of traditional economic ties, and the growing
inflation -- all this actually generated the need for radical
measures to restore the manageability of the national economy
and the utilization of all levers of state influence compatible
with the process of transition to the market.
Conversion in the System of Structural Changes
In the conditions in Russia, which has inherited from the
USSR a hypertrophied military industry, conversion emerges as a
major reserve for the country's economic development and for
substantially boosting the manufacture of civilian commodities
for consumption and investment purposes.
But the switching of military enterprises to civilian tracks
will require considerable time and major funds. Essentially,
conversion is an investment process requiring short-term
expenditure for the sake of long-term benefits. Investment
decisions affecting the conversion of production, new
construction, and the organization of supply and marketing have
always involved risk. The risk associated with the
implementation of large-scale conversion projects can be reduced
by in-depth technical and economic studies of the transition to
the manufacture of new output.
The country is profoundly concerned about the progress and
prospects of conversion activity. In many instances it has
hardly produced any results, having traversed the path from
"conversion by edict" to "free-for-all conversion."
It would seem expedient to conduct a state inspection
of major conversion projects in 1994 involving independent
experts in the analysis of financial and other problems. A
special government decree could be adopted on the basis of a
summation of the inspection's results. This is also
necessitated by the ratification of the Russian Federation's
military doctrine, whose provisions make it possible to
determine the scale and pace of the release of resources from
the military sphere and, correspondingly, of conversion activity
in the coming years.
The Modern Course of Industrial Policy
The objective of the state's selective structural
policy, in line with the 12 April 1993 decree of the
Russian Federation Council of Ministers-Government, is to
ensure the enhanced efficiency of social production via targeted
changes of its structure, technological standards, and lists of
items produced, and the stabilization and growth of the
financial and economic interest of enterprises and
entrepreneurs. With a view to financial stabilization, the
government has planned a series of measures regulating the
federal budget's relations with territorial budgets and so on.
Credits for industry play a special role in this process. On
the one hand, the mass provision of credit for enterprises has
slowed down the accelerating slump in production but, on the
other hand, it has intensified inflation and has led to the
stabilization of the flawed structure of production with which
we are living today.
The government took the path of detailing a selective
structural policy which presupposes choice from options which
have not lived up to expectations. But our country's
inefficient economy makes it very difficult to pick a sector
which can be painlessly abandoned.
The selectiveness of structural policy is also based on
financial levers. The unconditional and efficient utilization
of limited financial resources presupposes their targeted
utilization and rigid choice of priorities. At the same time,
the proclaimed priorities essentially extend to all sectors of
the national economy. "Capital investments in priority sectors"
(the fuel and energy complex, the chemical industry, the
agro-industrial complex, transport and communications, the
military-industrial complex, and science) account for 70 percent
of capital investments. If we add to this the investments in
housing construction, the government intends to control about 90
percent of all capital investments. The implementation of this
program will lead not to any enhancement of the state's role,
but to preservation of its monopoly status in the sphere of
investments and state control of the formation and distribution
of financial resources.
The state's selective structural program says nothing about
the economic criteria for assessing the efficiency of investment
programs and projects.
The proposed criterion for sectoral affiliation will lead to
wholesale provision of credits for sectors regardless of their
technical standards and production efficiency. The program does
not reveal the organizational plan of structural policy. In the
past this was done during the elaboration of state plans which
included resource indicators, end results, and efficiency levels.
In our opinion, the structural investment policy must be
built on the basis of directive and indicative plans. Moreover,
the sole criterion of efficiency must be the technical standards
and competitivenss of production and the extent to which output
meets world standards. Budget appropriations and credits could
be allocated for the implementation of such projects.
It is well known that a leading position among the
priorities
of structural policy is assigned to the development of the fuel
and energy complex, on which the provision of vital services for
the economy and the development of export potential depend.
Here it is necessary to be aware of the danger of hypertrophy
and the possible transformation of an economy, which may not be
efficient but is nonetheless industrially developed, into an
energy and raw materials appendage of the world economy. In
this context it would appear expedient to elaborate a
concept of Russia's economic security and its participation in
the system of international division of labor -- taking
into account the entire complex of national-state interests,
including strategic interests.
Despite the numerous attempts to stabilize the ruble,
Russia is in a financial blind alley today. The
government's anti-inflation measures produce the diametrically
opposite results. According to our forecasts, the Goznak [Main
Administration for Production of State Bank Notes, Coins, and
Medals] printing presses will inevitably work harder in 1994.
There is a view that an extrication from the crisis is possible
through the creation of a new ruble.
Drawing parallels with the two hyperinflations in Germany,
for example, we will be unable to cope with this problem without
international assistance. A Russian international bank ought to
be set up in Switzerland by decision of the Russian Federation
Government and the IMF. The IMF could provide the promised $6
billion as a foreign currency backup for the new ruble.
Over a period of 6-12 months Russia will earn a similar
amount, including earnings from exports, payments for which will
be paid directly into this bank's account. Having accumulated
$12 billion, the bank will embark on the launch of a new ruble
and will begin using the new currency for partial settlement
with exporting enterprises. The new Russian currency will be
gradually transferred to the Central Bank of the Russian
Federation. It will be converted into dollars at the rate of
1:1. The old and new rubles could circulate in parallel.
At the same time, the Russian Federation Government ought to
launch a large-scale program to combat unemployment.
The labor force being released could be channeled into the
building of highways, railroads, and airports. The new rubles
will be initially concentrated around exporting enterprises,
enabling them to recruit the most skilled personnel. This will
serve as an incentive for other enterprises holding foreign
currency to repatriate it and convert it into new rubles.
Consequently, the circulation of the new Russian currency will
be stepped up and this will lead to economic recovery. Once
Russia has repaid the $6 billion to the IMF, the Russian
international bank can be moved to Moscow.
3. Agrarian Reform
For the fourth year running the economy's agrarian
sector is experiencing the growing effect of the irreversible
processes of breakdown of production and its material and
technical base, impoverishment of the peasantry itself, and
degradation of the countryside.
The socioeconomic situation in the agro-industrial complex
testifies that the economic reforms being implemented in the
country have led to a slump in production and have disrupted the
economic parity prevailing in the early 1990's between rural
commodity producers and industrial enterprises, and this in turn
has led to the countryside's devastation, accumulation of debts
owed by all farms, and protracted crisis.
This extremely dangerous situation stems from reforms which
have not been properly thought out, the price disparity between
industry and agriculture, and the constantly rising prices of
all means of production, fuel, and construction and other
materials used in the countryside.
We are seeing primarily the ruin of large-scale specialized
production which, for the most part, has been up to world
standards in terms of its efficiency. In stockbreeding, for
example, these powerful production units are working at just
one-third of even less of their capacity through the lack of
feeds. Losses in the stockbreeding sector could be recouped by
at least 12-15 years of extremely intensive work.
The intensification of long-term negative trends, primarily
the decline of the agrarian sector's production potential, is
especially alarming. There is a catastrophic decline of soil
fertility, and virtually all social programs for the
reorganization of the Russian countryside have been cut back.
The rural population's mortality rate in Russia as a
whole is 32 percent higher than the urban population's.
Not a single state has ever suffered such losses.
Passions have been raging in society over the last few years
about the right to privately own land and turn it into a
commodity to be sold and purchased. This most complex
question ought to be seriously examined. The mass media are
using the terms "private ownership" and "personal ownership" as
interchangeable. Nobody objects to the right to privately own
land in the form of peasants' yards or land parcels for use as
gardens or kitchen gardens by urban dwellers. On the whole,
however, land for the commodity production of agricultural
produce can belong only to those who cultivate it with their own
labor. P.A. Stolypin, in his 9 November 1909 manifesto,
allocated a vast quantity of new lands for peasants but did not
once use the words "private ownership" but spoke of personal
ownership, in other words possession and utilization, but not
disposal.
Profitability levels should not fall below 75 percent in
order to ensure the normal functioning of all forms of economic
management in the countryside. If there is no success in
establishing control over the formation of prices for the
countryside's means of production, it will be necessary to
immediately release the prices of agricultural produce. After
all, the freedom of some commodity producers should not turn
into economic bondage for others.
Unfortunately, the cancellation of all forms of subsidies
will only step up the degradation of the countryside and of
agricultural production.
Such irreparable damage must not be allowed to occur. It is
necessary to use all available and sensible means to prevent the
collapse of Russia's agro-industrial complex, to radically
change the financial and credit relations between the state and
the farms producing agricultural produce, and to put an end to
government support for the commercial banks' predatory policy.
Financial and credit policy ought to be in the state's hands.
The following must be inalienable components of the
program for boosting the agro-industrial complex:
- Forming on a voluntary basis a mixed economy in the
agro-industrial sector and providing state support for
agricultural enterprises under all forms of ownership and
management.
- Ensuring price parity in agriculture's intersectoral
exchange with other sectors of the national economy, and
establishing stable incomes for agricultural commodity producers
making it possible to conduct expanded reproduction.
- Ensuring fulfillment of the Law on Grain as regards support
for grain producers.
- Ensuring transition to a standard land tax for agricultural
commodity producers, state protectionism in financial policy for
the agrarian sector, and preferential credits.
- Creating a state food fund. Produce for it could be
acquired in exchange for resource materials at agreed prices.
- Ensuring in January-February 1994 resources for rural
commodity producers for the spring sowing campaign: seeds,
equipment, spare parts, fuel, and lubricants. A decision must
be adopted on preferential state credits, to be repaid by
agricultural produce.
- Accelerating the creation of an extra-budget fund for
financial support for the agro-industrial complex. Special
attention must be given to the countryside's social development,
the enhancement of soil fertility, the development of land
reclamation, machine building, and the processing and food
industries, and the production of mineral fertilizers and plant
and animal protection agents.
- Ensuring state support for agrarian science and the
assimilation of its elaborations in production, and for cadre
training.
- Reviewing the state's export and import policy as regards
purchases abroad of agricultural produce produced in the Russian
Federation.
- Putting a stop to the export of mineral fertilizers needed
to satisfy domestic demand.
4. The Stabilization of Finances
The financial and banking system is in a state of crisis.
The current problems are largely and historically rooted in
problems existing earlier in the USSR. The collapse of the
USSR, together with other political, social, military, and other
factors not directly associated with finances, has aggravated
this package of problems severalfold. There is no doubt
that all these negative factors and their impact on the
financial system will persist also in 1994.
At the same time, there are also the mistakes and errors
committed recently, which call for special mention.
The last two years have shown that the overcoming of the
slump in production and the acceleration of structural changes
in Russia's national economy cannot be guaranteed exclusively by
the means of monetary and credit policy. Furthermore, such an
approach is flawed in its very foundations.
In the conditions of inflation, the capitals of enterprises
and banks are being swiftly devalued while credit operations are
being essentially curtailed, even though the indicators --
without any adjustment for inflation -- speak of an apparent
growth of credit operations and foreign currency on balance
sheets. If they were to be adjusted for inflation, they would
be sharply reduced.
The main causes of inflation are the sharp decline of
production, the arbitrary prices set by enterprises in
conditions of monopolism and commodity shortages, the budget
deficit, the breakdown of economic ties with enterprises in
former Union republics and CEMA countries, and the exportation
of Russian commodities at dumping prices. These are the
factors that lead to an imbalance between the money in
circulation and the commodities avilable for purchase.
Errors in the implementation of economic reforms and the
super-rigid monetarist credit policy, together with confusion in
calculations, have intensified the slump in production and
fueled inflation. The main lever for holding inflation back
ought to be the credit support for viable enterprises. If
enterprises do not receive credits to meet production costs and
cover deferred payments, they would be altogether unable to
function and, due to mass production stoppages, inflation would
be many times greater.
In conditions that encourage incessant price
increases and decline of the ruble's purchasing power, it is
impossible to achieve normal commodity-money circulation,
including the maintenance of balance between the total price of
commodities in circulation and the total amount of money
released into circulation. What should be the specific measures
that would make it possible to satisfy the commodity market at
prices acceptable by the majority of the population?
One of the strategic solutions is to restrict the amount of
money in circulation. Last year, this resulted in a huge total
of reciprocal nonpayments. Prices went up and the enterprises'
money evaporated. But credit emission is still being curtailed
by whipping up interest rates. The ruble's purchasing power is
falling uncontrollably because prices are rising without
restraint. The imbalance between the value of commodities in
circulation and the total amount of money in circulation is
widening. In a normal economic process, money serves as a
technical means of payment when exchanged for commodities. If
there is no money, commodity-money circulation is slowed down
and disrupted, since commodity production is curtailed.
Although everyone cites the need for credit emission to be held
back by the Central Bank, commodity producing enterprises are in
debt. This is confirmed by the correlation of the growth of
prices and of money in circulation: Over a two-year period the
former increased by a factor of between 100 and 1,000, while the
total amount of money increased only by a factor of 10 to 15.
While commodity producers are cutting back and curtailing
production, the budget deficit is growing at a mad pace each
year. But how are the state's inordinately rising expenses to be
covered if the enterprises' revenues are falling and,
consequently, budget revenues from taxation are reduced? The
difference (approximately 20 trillion rubles) will have to be
covered by money emission. This reveals the main cause of
inflation -- budget expenditures are beginning to exceed the
total value of commodities produced for circulation.
But we cannot avoid deliberate and controlled
inflationary expenditure on investments and the production of
commodity produce. Even five years ago, the country would
have needed trillions of rubles to replace worn out equipment
and thus ensure simple reproduction. This accounts for 50 to 60
percent of all fixed assets in production. At today's prices,
the amount of money needed would be 1,000 times greater.
Without restoring the fixed assets, we will be unable to build
a market economy and solve social problems. Meanwhile,
investments in the last two years have been scanty.
Furthermore, a sizeable proportion has been devalued because
the investment period spans several years. Investments in
production have been reduced by a factor of about five compared
with the minimum that is necessary. Enterprises are
consuming their depreciation reserves, let alone their profits.
This is yet another consequence of irresponsibility and the
false perception of economic freedom.
Evidently, we should not count on the foreign credits that
have been promised. Therefore, in order to revive the
economy, we will be unable to manage without inflationary credit
emission, but a credit emission that is accurately verified
and controlled. It must be noted that in a healthy economic
system, high interest rates are set in order to reduce
inflation. In our own conditions today, high interest rates
prompt a faster pace of price increases and further devaluation
of money. Fast growth of commodity production can be
achieved by lowering interest rates while accelerating the
turnover of funds and providing targeted credits for the
economy. This means an economic effect for both creditor
and commodity producer. This is the way to extricate ourselves
more swiftly from the grip of inflation.
But we will change nothing in our life today without solving
the general questions of financial and economic policy, without
establishing firm rules of the game. It is, after all, no
secret: Many people are in favor of a market without rules.
Primarily middlemen, traders, and dealers. As well as some
commercial banks with their high interest rates for credits
funded by their borrowing from the Central Bank, which itself
sets the tone in this sphere.
The rules of the game in the market today can be established
only by general agreement between all sides. This is normal
behavior in developed countries. The destruction of what has
already been created will continue without such an agreement,
without any organized principles.
The Monetary-Credit System
The disparity between the banking system models in Russia
and
other countries is the main cause hindering their
integration in a single financial area. The models applied
in Russia are substantially different from the models of the
world's banking business and encourage the
speculative-commercial accumulation of capital rather than its
investment in production supplying commodities to the market.
The second important reason hindering the
integration of the Russian and the world's monetary-credit
systems is the underdevelopment of modern long-term forms of
settlement in Russia.
In these conditions, the attempt to elaborate the best
possible course in credit policy and reform the system of
settlements in the national economy is perceived by the Central
Bank of Russia as a priority task.
The objectives of the Bank of Russia's monetary-credit
policy
are enshrined in the Basic Guidelines of Monetary-Credit
Regulation in 1993, ratified by the Supreme Soviet, and in the
24 May 1993 Economic Policy Statement by the Government and the
Central Bank. Both documents set the main task of slowing down
inflation which devalues the population's money incomes and
savings, deforms production and trade, and distorts economic
guidelines for participants in economic relations.
Proceeding from the premise that the rate of inflation
depends on the rate of money supply, it ought to be expected
that, after a certain time lag, credit restrictions should
result in a slowing down of price increases. But inflation
stood at 20 percent in June, 22 percent in July, 26 percent in
August, and 23 percent in September. During the first nine
months of 1993, wholesale and consumer prices increased by a
factor of 7.3 and 6.3 respectively. Thus, the basic approach
toward the curbing of inflation has proved useless.
The rising prices of energy sources (of gas in February and
of coal in July) remained the main factor of inflation.
The monopoly status of individual groups of producers
provided the main cause of the accelerated increase of wholesale
prices and, after a brief interval, of consumer prices as well.
Inflation in Russia is expected to reach 900 to 1,000 percent
in 1993 as a whole.
The state of the monetary-credit sphere remains very
complex.
It is not only instability in the economy but also uncertainty
as regards the state budget that hinder any forecast of the
future dynamics of growth of the money in circulation and,
consequently, any effective regulation of its level.
In order to ensure a stable reduction of the rate of
inflation, the Central Bank's actions ought to be backed by an
appropriate budgetary and taxation policy. The inefficient
distribution of centralized credits is fraught with the danger
that a new crisis of nonpayments might develop; large-scale
financial injections might be required in order to avoid it and
this, in its turn, will lead to an expansion of unsatisfied
effective demand and higher rates of inflation. The gravity of
this threat is proved even more graphically by the fact that 40
percent of centralized credits received by enterprises are used
by them to cover current debts.
It is necessary to enhance the efficiency of
supervision and control of the activity of commercial banks.
When financing regional programs, it is necessary to utilize
the potential of credit partnerships and the advantages of
mortgage credit, and to create municipal banks. As regards
targeted state credits, these funds ought to be primarily
channeled into the implementation of specific projects
associated with the development of market infrastructure at
regional level.
The most important prerequisite for an efficient credit
policy and the improvement of the payments and settlements
system is to preserve the common economic area and the unified
monetary-credit and banking system within Russia's framework.
Settlements Between CIS States
One of the most complex problems concerns settlements with
the CIS states, many of which have either switched, or are in
the process of switching, to their own monetary systems. The
regulation of interstate settlements is hindered by the ruble's
uncertain status and by the difficulties standing in the way of
coordinating the monetary-credit policy of central or national
banks in the former USSR republics.
Russia must build its relations with former USSR republics
with due consideration for their policy aimed either at
preserving the single economic and currency area or at
withdrawing from it.
The agreement between Russia and Belarus on the unification
of their banking systems could serve as a prototype of new
financial relations in the CIS.
Taxes, Credits, Banks
Taxes, credits, consumption funds, and wages remain the main
levers for state regulation of market relations. Taxation
policy must limit the volume and size of these taxes and must
encourage and stimulate coomodity producers not in words but by
lowering the tax liability of those who boost production and by
giving preferential credits, while the banks should amend the
normatives for the formation and utilization of these funds.
The banks must stimulate and encourage them to boost the volume
of investments in production.
If we were to admit today that commodity producers must be
supported, these specific amendments must be enacted in current
legislation and any additional laws that might be needed must be
adopted.
A major mistake is being committed today: Attempts are made
to restrain inflation by virtually nothing but monetarist
methods -- by raising the base rate and rigidly limiting the
credits for enterprises. And yet the ruble's strength depends
mainly on the status of material production and the balance of
the state budget. So far, the economy in Russia has not been
functioning as a self-tuning mechanism. Therefore, it is of
course a mistake to apply all the methods which operate in a
developed market economy. In these conditions, a moderately
tough credit policy would be the most appropriate. It must be
tough but, nonetheless, we have no right to deprive the healthy
nucleus of the country's economy of credit overnight.
There is the especially urgent question of the
concept of the further development and building of our
national banking system. Russia has approximately 1,800
commercial banks, 88 percent of which are small and medium banks
with a registration capital of up to 100 million rubles. Their
interests must also be taken into account. After all, there is
no uncommitted money in Russia, no such money is held by the
enterprises and organizations which are the main founders of
banks.
The Economic Market Conditions Center under the Russian
Federation Council of Ministers-Government conducted a study of
the business activity of Russia's commercial banks. There were
173 banks taking part in the poll: 79 small, 46 medium, and 48
large ones. An analysis of the replies showed that the majority
of bankers believe in an opportunity to improve the situation of
both their own banks and of the banking system as a whole.
Higher profits are anticipated by 92 percent of them. Nine out
of every 10 banks expect to boost their reserves. None of the
banks has any intention of reducing its staff numbers, while
some even expect to increase their staff.
Nonetheless, about 40 percent of bankers report
possible cutbacks in their services for state enterprises: 72
percent believe that the financial-economic situation of their
clients in the state sector will deteriorate; more than
one-third of banks do not expect their deposit base to be
boosted by state enterprises.
Almost all banks reported that they do not plan any
cutbacks in credits for commercial structures in 1994. In this
process, they will give preference to short-term credits.
The commercial banks are striving to expand the sphere of
their operations. But the investment of the banks' own funds in
commercial enterprises is a high-risk operation that could lead
to a reduction of their capital availability and the emergence
of difficulties with liquidity and solvency. Furthermore, in
individual cases, the banks use for such purposes not only their
own funds but also funds attracted from their clients, thus
exposing not only themselves but also their depositors to
additional risks.
In this context, the Bank of Russia plans to submit a
proposal on amendments to banking legislation as regards
limiting the proportion of the bank's own capital being utilized
and the formation of registered capital by other nonbanking
legal entities.
We need to work on a law on banks and banking operations and
the central bank and, in all likelihood, it will serve a dual
purpose.
Many of the administrative measures today are essentially
antimarket, antientrepreneurial, and antistate. There is
a trend toward transforming the Russian economy into an economy
dependent on the world market and the developed countries.
It is necessary to change the course of economic policy and
the strategy and tactics of economic reforms; we should bring to
the foreground the priorities of our own country's
industrialists, entrepreneurs, agrarians, private farmers, and
workers. This means amending all the components of
financial-credit policy, including taxation, budget, foreign
economic activity, and privatization.
Destatization and privatization must be
conducted on legitimate grounds and in the interests of the
widest possible social strata. But the means and methods of
privatization being applied today are a retreat from Russian
laws and a disregard for the interests of our country's
industrialists and entrrpreneurs. Controlling blocks of shares
in many privatized plants and highly profitable Russian
enterprises are often acquired by foreign capital through
proxies.
The strengthening and stabilization of the Russian
ruble is the most important condition for the national
economy's revival. The policy being pursued today certainly
needs amendment, because it is making the Russian national
currency dependent on the demand for and supply of foreign
currencies, on the dollarization of the Russian market.
The strengthening of the ruble will also be served by the
imposition of order in foreign economic activity,
which incurs major losses of foreign currency. But even here
the government still retains unjustified import subsidies and
increases duties and taxes which raise prices still higher and
fuel inflation.
Now it is already perfectly clear that the period of
transition to the new economy will take years. Bearing this
fact in mind, the government and the Central Bank must elaborate
a long-term economic and credit-monetary policy, in which
a central position should be assigned to the state regulation of
the economy and the creation of favorable conditions for
the development of productive and entrepreneurial activity.
In the long term, financial stabilization lays the
foundations for growth of investments, but for the short term it
can be confidently forecast that there will be a further
reduction of investments in the national economy which, in the
conditions of high degree of wear and tear or obsolescence of a
sizeable proportion of fixed assets, could lead to a decline of
technological discipline, accidents, substandard output, and
breakage of technological links.
Among the questions of foreign currency-financial
policy the main problem is not the choice of a rate of
exchange system but the creation of economic prerequisites for
its stabilization. We deem it expedient to aim for a
breakthrough in the movement of the ruble's rate of exchange
exclusively through official foreign currency investments. The
use of intervention could be aimed at smooting out any excessive
short-term fluctuations of the rate of exchange.
It is necessary to adopt substantial measures to impose
effective foreign currency control in the Russian
Federation, specifically to set up a Russian Federal Foreign
Currency Control Service.
The Bank of Russia must organize more effective control over
the movement of funds to correspondents' accounts held by
Russian commercial banks for foreign banks. Legislative
provision must also be made ruling out the transfer of foreign
currency by natural persons to banks abroad and stepping up
liability for breaches of foreign currency and customs
legislation.
There is another important problem. Russia lacks funds for
financing capital investments and the elaboration of
innovations, which have a vast potential. This question must be
solved in a largely decentralized manner. The banks
participating in venture operations can earn sound returns, but
their efforts must be channeled toward the coordination of
resources.
We believe that the funds of commercial banks held in the
Central Bank's reserves must be utilized for investments rather
than for refinancing or for covering the budget deficit. This
is yet another source of inflation.
Information about the status of finances, money circulation,
and the credit market is highly important for the successful
development of the new credit system and the stabilization of
finances.
5. Social Policy
Last fall a session of Russia's Ministry of the Economy
Collegium examined the question "On the Draft Balance of the
Population's Money Incomes and Expenditures in 1994." It
analyzed the dynamics and structure of the formation and
utilization of the population's money incomes in the past and
the prospects for any possible changes in the future.
The liberalization of prices and the restraints on increases
of wages and social benefits have resulted in a sharp decline of
the real value of the population's money incomes. The
earnings of Russia's population fell short by about 900 billion
rubles [R] while the losses incurred by depositors, according to
data of Russia's Goskomstat, amounted to R460 billion.
According to experts' estimates, the population's
money incomes in 1994 will reach R68,300 billion. Bearing in
mind that consumer prices are estimated to increase more than
10-fold, the real value of money incomes will be significantly
reduced.
A further growth of the population's nominal money incomes
is
planned for 1994. The average monthly wage in material
production sectors will reach R350,000 (it is estimated that the
average wage of workers in Russia was about R80,000 in September
1993). Thus, there will be no success in slowing down the
decline of the population's living standards.
Errors and mistakes in the elaboration and implementation of
economic policy in the last few years have resulted in a
catastrophic decline of living standards. Thus, compared with
the end of 1991, the nominal increase of the population's money
incomes managed to provide only 50-percent compensation for the
increase of prices. In terms of the level of consumption of
material goods. Russia has found itself (in terms of different
categories of products and nonfood goods) thrust back by 10-20
years.
There is also a deterioration of the structure of services
rendered to the population, a structure which remains extremely
defective. According to data of Russia's Goskomstat (based on
results for the first nine months of 1993), dominant position
was still held by passenger transport services, which currently
account for 40 percent. The proportion of paid services by
cultural institutions is declining due primarily to the reduced
number of vistors. The high costs of travel and stay and the
unstable situation in many of the traditional tourist resorts
have curtailed the opportunities for meaningful rest by the
population. Expenditure on payment for recreational services
account for only 8.9 percent of the total expenditures by the
population (against 9.7 percent in 1992). The housing and
municipal services complex accounts for 12 percent of the total
volume of services, 7 percent of which represents payment for
housing.
One of the most negative results of the current economic
policy is the sharp decline of the real value of the
population's money savings. The GDP deflator increased by a
factor of 430.8 between 1991 and mid-1993. As regards the
population's financial deposits held by the Savings Bank, they
have increased by a factor of only 6.5. Thus, taking into
account the decline of the ruble's purchasing power, the
population's money savings have been devalued by 98.5 percent.
According to Ministry of Labor calculations, Russia now
has a stratum of superrich people -- about 3 million
persons. They are mainly leaders of brokerage firms,
commercial banks and exchanges, and individuals engaged in
export-import operations. This group also includes criminals --
corrupt representatives of executive power and the bosses of
organized crime who belong to the population group enjoying
superhigh incomes. The main sources of the initial accumulation
of capital are speculation, usury, appropriation of rent
revenues formerly paid to the state, and criminal activity.
Thus society is being rapidly stratified into a relatively
small prospering stratum and the bulk of the poor mass of the
population. According to Ministry of Labor data, "the poorest"
comprise 40-50 percent, and the "simply poor" comprise 30-35
percent of the population (see Table 2).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Table 2. Wealth Stratification of the Population, Poverty Lines, and Pover-|
|ty Levels |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Indicators |1991 |Jun 1992 |Jun 1993 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Incomes concentra-|0.256 |0.275 |0.325 |
|tion index (Dzhin-| | | |
|i [as translitera-| | | |
|ted] coefficient)*| | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Correlation of th-|5.4 |7.2 |9.0 |
|e level of averag-| | | |
|e per capita inco-| | | |
|me of the 10 perc-| | | |
|ent richest and t-| | | |
|he 10 percent poo-| | | |
|rest members of t-| | | |
|he population, fa-| | | |
|ctor | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Subsistence wage (|200 |2,200 |18,000 |
|upper threshold o-| | | |
|f poverty), ruble-| | | |
|s per person | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Numbers of the po-| | | |
|pulation with inc-| | | |
|ome below the sub-| | | |
|sistence minimum: | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|millions of perso-|17 |64 |44 |
|ns | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|as percentage of |11.7 |43.2 |29.5 |
|total population | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Minimum survival |110 |1,200 |10,000 |
|wage (lower thres-| | | |
|hold of poverty), | | | |
|rubles per person | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Numbers of the po-| | | |
|pulation with inc-| | | |
|ome | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|below the minimum | | | |
|survival wage: | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|millions of perso-|1.4 |13 |11 |
|ns | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|as percentage of |1.0 |8.9 |6.2 |
|total population | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*(Footnote) (The Dzhini coefficient shows the nature of the
distribution of the population's total incomes among its
individual groups. The higher the degree of society's
polarization by level of income, the closer this coefficient is
to 1. Conversely, in conditions of equal distribution of
incomes in society, the Dzhini coefficient equals 0.
[Rossiya-93, Ekonomicheskaya Konyunktura (Russia-93, Economic
Market Conditions), Third Edition, Center of Economic Market
Conditions under the Russian Council of
Ministers-Government)]
The middle stratum of the population, which was numerically
the largest in the past, now comprises only 10-15 percent. At
the same time, it is undergoing a sharp deterioration of its
professional and social structure. Formerly the middle class
consisted mainly of skilled workers, the intelligentsia, and
managers. Now all these strata have dropped to the social
bottom. The growing difference in the sphere of material goods
depends very little on personal effort. Some people are
enriching themselves on a hitherto unprecedented scale at the
cost of other people's impoverishment.
The level of the education and skills of the overwhelming
part of workers and employees does not correspond with the level
of their wages, since the ongoing social stratification -- in
terms of scale and of orientation -- does not correspond with
the changes in the economy and the employment of the population,
whose parameters are comparable with those in the majority of
developed countries.
1994 will see a continuation of the formation of a
lower stratum of the population which is numerically large but
lacks sufficient purchasing power, whose family members are
forced to channel almost all of their money incomes into the
satisfaction of primary needs rather than into the acquisition
of consumer durables and savings, in other words the
prerequisites for creating a firm base for stable long-term
economic growth are being undermined.
The rising prices of the output of the fuel and energy and
raw materials complexes have resulted in headlong increases of
the prices of all other goods and services. This is the
determining factor of the growth of both wholesale and consumer
prices.
Thus, two years after the announcement and start of
implementation of stabilization measures in Russia, there have
been no positive changes in the race between consumer prices and
the population's money incomes.
6. Toward Realism in Economic Policy
Viktor Chernomyrdin, chairman of the Russian Federation
Council of Ministers, and Viktor Gerashchenko, chairman of the
Central Bank of Russia, adopted the joint "Statement on the
Economic Policy of the Government and Central Bank of Russia."
This document defines the basic guidelines which the government
and the Bank of Russia intend to follow when pursuing the policy
of financial stabilization and market development through the
end of 1993 and in 1994. The official joint statement omits to
appraise the economic policy being pursued.
In 1992-1993 state enterprises strove to compensate the
growing shortage of means of payment primarily by raising the
prices of their manufactured output. Furthermore, deliveries
were effected despite the fast growth of reciprocal nonpayments.
Essentially, the enterprises' indebtedness started playing
the role of additional money in circulation, seriously weakening
the financial restrictions of price increases. Thus,
restrictive measures in the financial-budget and monetary-credit
spheres of economic regulation proved ineffective.
The progressive decline of the volume of output of
industrial
production and the rash abolition of state controls over incomes
and prices not only prevented a substantial reduction of
effective demand but also encouraged the widening of the
previously formed gap between total demand and supply. This gap
acquired qualitatively new features, causing an inflationary
growth of prices and a corresponding decline of the population's
real incomes and living standards.
The snowballing destruction of economic ties, the decline of
contractual discipline, and the substantial deterioration of the
enterprises' financial positions have aggravated the situation.
The enterprises' mass indebtedness necessitated a choice
between tough "monetarist" policy at any price, even including
the closure of numerous production units, and support for
investment and consumer demand and business activity. The
development of events forced both the government and the Central
Bank to urgently adopt measures and economic decisions along
frankly proinflationary lines. There were reciprocal write-offs
of nonpayments and enterprises were given financial
"sustenance," which somewhat eased the nonpayments crisis.
But the reduction of inflation remains the fundamental
objective of economic policy. Quantitative restrictions have
been substantially eased. The plans were that the monthly rate
of inflation would be brought down to below 10 percent by the
end of 1993, and that price stabilization would be attained in
1994.
The Statement does not contain any quantitative restrictions
on the amount of budget deficit, and this is a clear retreat
from previous intentions.
The Statement lays down that the total budget deficit will
be
limited by quarterly guidelines which, in their turn, ought to
correspond with the Central Bank of Russia's quarterly limits on
the total growth of credits.
Russia's government and Central Bank agreed with the
proposal
to gradually abandon the provision of all categories of targeted
credits along Central Bank lines and to switch to the provision
of subsidies only from the budget. With a view to implementing
monetary-credit policy on a market basis, the Central Bank of
Russia will substantially increase the proportion of credits it
gives to commercial banks either through credit auctions or on
market terms. The Central Bank also pledged to refrain from
distributing targeted credits on a sectoral or regional basis
and to give credits directly to specific enterprises.
In the sphere of currency exchange rates it was confirmed
that the government perceives the creation of a standard market
rate for the ruble as a key element of the transition to market
economy. The Statement evades the question of the ruble's
convertibility, noting that the transition to a stable exchange
rate is a strategic task.
Thus, it appears that there is a gradual movement
toward a strategic course whose objective is to enhance the
manageability of the national economy and formulate a sober
policy of state regulation of economic processes. The
means are: selective support for production, moderately rigid
monetary-credit policy, and manageable inflation even at the
cost of budget deficit. Only then will it be possible to boost
output, which ought to produce a stabilizing effect.
In order to change the overall socioeconomic situation in
the
country for the better and overcome the economic crisis of the
last few years in 1994, it will be necessary to resolve
the following key tasks:
1. To halt the slump in production which has been continuing
for three years running.
Sectors of the fuel and raw materials complexes, sectors
producing semimanufactured goods, and agriculture will find
themselves in an especially difficult position. The reasons are
the shortfall in investments in these sectors in previous years
and the curtailment of effective demand. This negative trend
can be overcome only if the state steps up its structural
regulation of the economy. It is necessary to define
macroeconomically effective investment projects and finance them
from centralized sources.
2. It will also be necessary to elaborate effective
measures to ensure that the population continues to keep savings
in the banks, even in conditions of declining levels of real
money incomes.
3. To formulate and consistently implement a policy of price
control, combining the regulated and free sectors in price
formation.
The implementation of the proposed measures will, to a
certain extent, make it possible to ease the acuteness of
unemployment, which will be the main problem in the social
sphere next year. At present, despite the sizeable slump in
production, the unemployed represent only 4-5 percent of the
able-bodied population. The stepping up of investment activity
will lead to a revival of production and, consequently, to the
maintenance of employment. This could be the only method for
compensating the further decline of living standards. Due to
the shortage of resources, the state will be able to help only
the most deprived strata of the population -- pensioners, the
disabled, and young families with children -- and only at
minimal levels.
Only the fulfillment of these conditions will make it
possible in 1994 to ensure stabilization of the economy, satisfy
the population's most important vital needs, and create
prerequisites for further stable economic development.
Section IV: IV. Protection of the Interests of
Russian-Speaking Population
1. The Contemporary Status of Russians
The status of Russians today could become the most
probable cause of local civil wars. People in a
series of new states have moved from words and slogans to actual
deeds. Latvia and Estonia, for example, beneath the banner of
protecting the "indigenous population," have started introducing
restrictions on the rights of the nontitular population,
primarily via legislation on citizenship.
Let us recall that about 40 percent of the population
in Latvia and Estonia are Russian-speakers, with 10 percent in
Lithuania, while the total number of Russian-speakers, mainly
Russians, in the Baltic countries approaches 2.5 million.
Now they all are an ethnic minority.
There are about 950,000 Estonians and at least 600,000
"foreigners" living in Estonia at present. This separation was
effected on the basis of a juridical act adopted by parliament
-- the decree bringing into force the Law "On Citizenship" as it
stood on 16 June 1940, in other words the day when the Red Army
entered the republic. The residence qualification is two years,
with another year before citizenship is acquired.
The law adopts a rigid approach toward representatives of
the
nonindigenous population who are already residents and
have spent many years working for the benefit of Estonia.
Now they have to undergo the two years' residence qualification
period and a further year on probation, and must pass
examinations in the language and their knowledge of the
republic's history and culture.
Under the laws, more than 1.5 million people, who are
automatically deprived of citizenship in the Baltic republics,
could find themselves outside the political process. Their
interests will not be represented by anyone.
Even the previous elections to Latvia's Supreme Soviet
demonstrated the radical politicians' obvious desire to squeeze
Russian-speakers out of the political process. By simply
manipulating the organization of electoral districts, they
ensured that the "indigenous" Lettish population
representing just over 50 percent, won two-thirds of seats
in the Supreme Soviet.
Under the new citizenship laws, the Russian-speaking
population in Latvia and Estonia will not be represented
at all in the organs of state power.
There is a sharp reduction of television and radio
broadcasts
from Russia. It is planned to legislatively deprive major
Russian communities in the Baltic countries of the right to
acquire higher education in their native language. A unilateral
curtailment of the network of Russian secondary education is
under way.
The offensive against Russian culture and the Russian
language is one of the avenues of massive pressure on the
Russian-speaking population of the Donbass, accounting for 50-75
percent of the total population in different rayons. Moreover,
the fact that this offensive is carried out on such a massive
scale and with impunity makes it possible to describe it as
Ukraine's state policy in a region with its own history,
culture, and real bilingualism. The task of leveling the
national-cultural situation in West Ukraine and the Donbass by
force has been set at state level.
This is proved by numerous facts. All the educational
establishments are sharply and groundlessly reducing the number
of study periods for Russian language and literature, while the
study of the Russian language is altogether ruled out at teacher
training institutes' nonspecialized faculties. Thus, the
Lugansk Teacher Training Institute's Russian Philology Faculty
has been persistently instructed by ministerial circles to
delete from its curriculum the practical training in folklore
and dialectology (gathering examples of folk art and Russian
dialects). The reason given is that there are no regions where
Russian culture has developed in the Donbass, even though
years-long expeditions prove something completely different:
Russian folk songs, tales, poems, and so on are widespread in
the region, and so are Russian dialects associated primarily
with the historical proximity of the Don Host.
There is a noticeable trend toward the creation of unequal
conditions for tuition: The number of pupils at classes taught
in the Ukrainian language is lower than that of pupils in
classes taught in the Russian language by a factor of between
three and five, but the teaching of a foreign language from the
first grade is introduced mainly in classes taught in the
Ukrainian language, and so are the new and promising cirriculums
in general. The new forms of educational establishment are also
geared to instruction in the Ukrainian language -- in Lugansk's
only high school, for example, classes studying language and
literature in depth are geared almost exclusively to the
Ukrainian language.
Psychological pressure is exerted on lecturers teaching
their
students in the Russian language, and incentives are offered to
those who teach specialized subjects only in the Ukrainian
language. This naturally produces a drain of skilled
specialists.
At the same time, people are deliberately keeping silent
about the fact that the Union republics, thanks to efforts by
the entire former Union and the Russian Federation's decisive
contribution, created modern sectors of the national
economy using technology that was at times more advanced than in
the Russian Federation itself. The best forces of the
entire country were thrown in to ensure higher and faster
development rates for the former Union republics' economies,
thus creating more favorable prerequisites for the
formation of production and social infrastructures actually
there, rather than in the Russian Federation.
The national intelligentsia, actively influencing the
self-awareness of the peoples, perceived the Russians as
the most substantial obstacle to the republics' sovereignty
and to the manifestation of nationalist ambitions.
The status of Russians in Kazakhstan is indicative in this
regard. The introduction of a discriminatory law on languages
in the republic prompted a huge wave of dissatisfaction among a
large proportion of the population. Russians and
Russian-speakers, deprived of any real opportunity to study the
Kazakh language in the past, are unable to actively participate
in the various spheres of society's life -- production,
education, science, management, the services sphere, and so on.
The present language tuition system falls short of the demands
posed by life. Dissatisfaction with the law is also expressed
by 40 percent of Kazakhs who are not fluent in their native
language.
The discriminatory nature of the state program on the
language is boosted by the policy of state publishing houses.
Thus, under the subject-matter plan for literary publications,
the republic's "Ana Tili" Publishing House should have published
79 titles. The plans included the publication of nine books in
the Russian language and nine in the Russian and Kazakh
languages -- these are dictionaries. The remaining titles -- 61
books in all -- are in the Kazakh language. The proportion is
identical at other publishing houses. And yet it is emphasized
that the republic is multinational and that Kazakhstan has
signed the Human Rights Charter.
The situation prevailing in the education system is no
better. Secondary schools are increasingly often converted and
are switching to tuition exclusively in the Kazakh language.
Furthermore, this is being done without augmenting the
educational premises, thus overloading the schools where tuition
is in the Russian language. No Russian, German, Ukrainian, or
other schools are being opened at all.
Prospering enterprises are under attack by the nationalist
mafia. Following several attacks, there are neither Russians
nor Germans left any more at the "Pravda" Sovkhoz, the best in
the republic. Here is a typical case: There was an explosion
at the Ust-Kamenogorsk nuclear fuel plant's beryllium production
unit, and 120,000 persons suffered as a result. A session of
Kazakhstan's Supreme Soviet, taking into account the
"separatism" of Ust-Kamengorosk's residents who demanded
bilingualism, refused to proclaim the oblast an ecological
disaster zone.
The galvanization of the Cossack movement is encountering
sharp reaction. Kazakhstan contains the lands of four Cossack
hosts -- the Ural, Orenburg, Siberian, and Semirechensk.
Cossack organizations are not being registered by the
Kazakhstani authorities at present, while local courts have
firmly ruled that "there are and there will be no Cossacks in
Kazakhstan" and they are not allowed to wear their uniforms.
Cossack publications are banned and they are illegally imported
from Samara and Orenburg. A draft law is being prepared, under
which work in Cossack organizations will be punishable.
The results of inequality are obvious: More than 200 of the
Kazakhstani parliament's 360 deputies are Kazakhs, and so are 23
of the Presidential Council's 30 members, even though Kazakhs
constitute significantly less than one-half of Kazakhstan's
population.
Academician Sartayev, adviser to Kazakhstan's president,
declares: "Kazakhstan's lands must belong to the Kazakhs,"
forgetting that, back in the 1920's, the Union leadership's
decisions on the creation of the Republic of Kazakhstan spoke
openly of transferring to it a series of Russian oblasts.
There have been numerous attempts to insult the Russian
people's heritage: Names that have been Russian since time
immemorial are dsiappearing from geographical maps, the church
at the village of Kotelnikovskaya has been burned down, the
monument to Yermak the Great has been barbarously destroyed, all
Russian names are being systematically eliminated in
Kazakhstan's Guryev and other oblasts, while Guryev itself has
been renamed Atyrau.
The falsification of history is becoming increasingly
blatant: "Russia conquered and enslaved Kazakhstan" and so on.
S. Akatayev, leader of the "Azat" movement, would allow
Russians, Germans, and Uygurs to live in Kazakhstan because "we
need someone to milk the cows, till the soil, and cast the
metal." He is backed by S. Yermekova, representative of the
"Alash" party: "You are allowed only to work in Kazakhstan.
Keep your noses out of management."
The question of citizenship ought to be resolved in early
1994. The republic's Russian-speaking population will have to
make a choice: Either to accept citizenship and legally lose
any hope of help from Russia, or reject citizenship and be
deprived of all political and economic rights. Therefore, a
sizeable proportion of the Russian-speaking population is
inclined toward the idea of migrating to Russia, especially
since Russia has already adopted laws regulating the legal
status of refugees.
A sizeable proportion of the Russian population living on
the
territory of former Union republics no longer comprises
first-generation migrants and has, with perfect
justification, considered these republics to be its
motherland. Thus, more than one-half of Russians in the
Baltic countries have been born there. Approximately two-thirds
of them in Latvia either are natives of the republic or were
brought there as children. The majority of the remaining
one-third arrived in Latvia not of their own free will but
were posted there on the republic's request as specialists in
the national economy, or were ordered to go there as
officers. They restored the war-torn towns and villages,
rebuilt the plants and factories, or performed their military
duty. Their children and grandchildren were born there.
Fear for their nearest and dearest and uncertainty about the
future are forcing Russians to leave the Baltic countries and
Moldova where the Declaration of Human Rights is crudely
trampled and there is overt discrimination against the
Russian-speaking population. Huge masses of people in these
regions believe that they have been abandoned to the whims of
fate and that Russia is incapable of upholding their
interests.
Migration processes in the Central Asian and Transcaucasian
republics depend on the overall status of interethnic problems,
and any interethnic clash threatens to bring forth an exodus of
the Russian population.
Thus, the protection of the rights and legitimate
interests of the Russian diaspora in nearby foreign countries is
the only farsighted long-term policy. The strategic task
along this avenue is to achieve guaranteed living and working
conditions for Russians outside the Russian Federation which not
only would rule out any encouragement of their departure but
also would really create prerequisites for the preservation of
their national traditions, language, culture, and national
self-awareness. We perceive this prospect as the development of
economic, cultural, and political trends aimed against any
attempts to establish reactionary ethnocratic regimes on the
vast spaces of the former Union.
It is, of course hardly possible to rely on objective
reintegrational tendencies for reviving that which has collapsed
under the weight of accumulated contradictions and gross errors
by shortsighted politicians. There is no subjunctive mood in
history.
There is, however, an alternative to such a development of
events. But it is lamentable. It is, first, the
loss of economic independence by the newly formed states,
including Russia, following the disintegration of the single
economic area and the national economic complex which was
unified until the recent past; their distinctive
"Westernization" and their transformation into underdeveloped
appendages of major Western countries with a mafia-criminal
domestic economic and political structure. It is,
second, the intentional or unintentional flare-up of
inter-nation or interethnic conflicts either as a result of the
exacerbation and deterioration of the socioeconomic situation
and the impoverishment of broad strata of the population, or due
to the insolubility of questions pertaining to national-state
belonging of various territories, military property, and other
categories of former Union property.
If the gravest of consequences for all our peoples are to
be avoided, it is impossible to ignore in politics the
thousand-years old trend toward ethnic and ethnocultural
development and collaboration, as a result of which a
special type of Eurasian civilization started developing a
long time ago across the spaces of Russia and its associated
territories. The preservation of one's own state identity today
is a question not only of human dignity but also of political
wisdom.
All these changes will inevitably have an impact on millions
of Russians and their relatives in Russia. It is natural that
such a turn of events will inevitably prompt a social explosion
including -- and let us have no illusions on this account -- in
Russia itself, and will become a powerful factor for the
development of interstate conflicts. Pretending not to realize
this means directly encouraging such a development of events.
2. Political Aspects
A legitimate way out of the situation, from all points of
view, could be provided only by restoration of the common
economic, cultural, and legal area; unconditional removal of
trade barriers; introduction of benefits for members of the new
economic and defense union; adoption of common citizenship.
In the ninth year of "perestroyka" and after three years of
"democratization," Russia lacks a clear foreign policy
concept. There has been no definition of Russia's priorities or
a concept of the new integrational cooperation across the former
USSR. This is precisely why the sluggish activity of the
CIS has produced no positive results.
Russia's national priorities must indeed be the
interests of the peoples of the Russian Federation and of the
largest among them, the Russian people, which has for centuries
been Russia's unifying nucleus and has already proved its
consolidating role.
Consequently, all diplomatic, foreign political, and foreign
economic efforts must focus primarily on Russia's alliance
with the former Union republics which have a large proportion of
Russian and Russian-speaking population. They are
primarily Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova. This will make it possible
to solve the problem of almost 90 percent of ethnic Russians and
of many Russian citizens who are residents in these states. It
is in Russia's national interests, and regardless of the Russian
diaspora's size, to further strengthen the alliance with Central
Asian republics which have proved their commitment to the idea
of unity at the most critical times for Russia.
3. Toward Integration Via Coordination
There is an impression that, out of the entire package of
problems on whose solution the CIS ought to be working,
attention today is focused only on two aspects: The
supply of Russian raw materials and fuel to the NIS, and the
combat involvement of Russian troops under CIS auspices in
conflicts on the territory of the former USSR.
And yet the questions of paramount importance for the
peaceful period of development -- settling the issue of
citizens' rights -- are hardly ever on the agenda. The CIS
today certainly needs an organ capable of coordinating
humanitarian questions and easing the pressure of state borders
on the collective and individual rights of citizens of any
nationality.
The CIS collective organs could also coordinate the process
of reforms. It is hard to revive our economic mechanism while
different parts of the CIS implement divergent concepts of
transition to market economy. Like, for example, when the
Western republics adhere to the genuinely sensible limitations
of initial privatization while Russia is engaged exclusively in
"macroprivatization" -- the destatization of harbors and
airports, oil and gold fields, and industrial giants.
The problems that could be resolved only within the
framework
of a single socioeconomic area are considerably more numerous
than it might appear at first glance. The problem of
refugees whose solution presupposes, specifically, a system
of sanctions against republics whose
"democratization-liberation" policy poses a threat to people's
survival and to the guarantees of their elementary rights. As
well as the provision of complete secondary and higher
education in the native language, together with questions
concerning the pension provision for people who worked in
the USSR and are now living in CIS states.
No matter how sad this may be to admit, but the initially
built-in disintegrational factor still dominates the concept of
the CIS two years later. The reason is the lack of a
concept of unification, of a backbone around which a real, as
opposed to a nominal, "community" may be developed.
Russian and European experience alike show that a real and
dynamic foundation for the re-creation of a single humanitarian,
economic, and defense area can be provided by the
interests of ethnic minorities detached from their nucleus,
including the largest among them -- the Russian. A concept
capable of switching the CIS to the tracks of constructive
collaboration will emerge only when we abandon the demagoguery
abour Russian chauvinism and all the other tags recently
attached to the nation which succeeded in really rallying the
peoples on one-sixth of the Earth's surface.
4. Problems of Migration
Without a forecast of the true extent of migration, it is
difficult to determine what financial resources will be required
to compensate refugees and forced migrants for the damage they
have suffered and to provide facilities for new settlers, the
number of jobs that will have to be created for them, the real
burden that will be imposed on the social infrastructure at
places where migrants will concentrate, and so on.
The return of Russians from former USSR republics and the
migration of representatives of non-Russian peoples to Russia
began long before interethnic tension reached the stage of
open conflicts and became a bargaining chip in political
struggle. Even back in 1979-1988, the positive balance of
the migration to Russia by Russians who had formerly actively
resettled in other republics was in excess of 300,000.
The growth of the scale of migration was also affected by
the
outflow of "nonindigenous" peoples from regions where
non-Russian titular ethnic groups had concentrated in Russia
itself -- the Northern Caucasus, the Volga Valley, the
Siberian-Transbaykal region, and the northern belt of the
Federation.
In essence, these regions showed the selfsame symptoms of
discrimination against representatives of nontitular ethnic
groups as in nearby foreign countries.
Among the adverse consequences of mass migration, really
great importance attaches to the growth of social
stress. There is a significant deterioration of the social
awareness of migrants themselves, who have lost their former
status and, quite often, the prospects of social success. There
is also dissatisfaction among the residents of towns and
villages where they live.
Unfortunately, the help given to forced migrants or refugees
by the local organs of power and population is clearly
inadequate. The attempts by migrants to acquire a social niche
in the new localities come up against serious objective
difficulties. The level of social tension has increased
wherever refugees are concentrated as soon as they have
appeared. This is noted both by the migrants themselves and by
local residents.
The social and psychological atmosphere in which refugees
find themselves is also indicated by the results of a poll of
the population in 13 Russian Federation regions. When asked
"What policy do you support?", the answers were distributed as
follows (as percentage of the number polled):
Accept citizens of all former USSR republics regardless of
their nationality -- 36 percent
Accept only Russians by descent -- 51 percent
Do not accept anyone -- 11 percent
Did not answer -- 2 percent
One out of every 10 persons polled is against the
acceptance of migrants, while one-half of those polled are
inclined toward dividing refugees and migrants into "our people"
and "foreigners." These stereotypes of mass and individual
awareness cannot be ignored. They were graphically demonstrated
in practice in Saratov and Volgograd Oblasts during the
discussion of the question of settling Germans there and
re-creating a German autonomous formation in the Volga Valley.
The local population's unwelcoming attitudes toward migrants
will intensify as the shortages of foodstuffs, housing,
and so on worsen. This can already be seen at present.
Respondents of the all-Russia poll were asked: "What will be
your attitude if refugees which may appear in your region are
allocated housing out of turn, are given jobs, and are helped
with money from the state budget?" The answers were as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|1. Attitude toward help with employme-| |
|nt: | |
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|positive |58 percent |
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|negative |15 percent |
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|difficult to answer |27 percent |
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|2. Attitude toward help with money: | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|positive |56 percent |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|negative |19 percent |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|difficult to answer |25 percent |
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|3. Attitude toward help with housing: | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|positive |29 percent |
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|negative |33 percent |
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|difficult to answer |38 percent |
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The acuteness of the housing problem in Russia, where the
number of people waiting for housing is in excess of 9 million,
was clearly manifested by the fact that less than one-third of
those polled are inclined to support the policy of priority
housing allocation for forced migrants.
This indicator of potential conflict rises
sharply when the ethnic composition of migrants does not
coincide with the titular ethnic group at their new place of
settlement. In other words, mass migration is fraught
with a "chain reaction" of interethnic conflicts, the symptoms
of which can already be seen. Specifically, they take the
form of growing nationalism and attempts to initiate pogroms
against people of different nationality or religion in oblasts
which have taken in large numbers of migrants.
There are different forecasts about the migration of
Russians
to Russia. The number of potential migrants could include
virtually all 25 million Russians living in nearby
foreign countries. Some 4-5 million people in the next
5-10 years -- this is the maximum size of the migration flows
which could be prompted either in the event of exacerbation of
interethnic relations or as a result of the start of combat
operations on the territories of former Union republics.
According to Federal Migration Service data, over the next
12-18 months we can expect between 650,000 and 1.2 million
people to arrive in Russia from nearby foreign
countries: 300,000-400,000 from Ukraine and Belarus,
250,000-550,000 from Central Asia and Kazakhstan, 40,000-100,000
from the Transcaucasus, and 25,000-45,000 from the Baltic
countries.
The mass migration of Russians from Ukraine and Belarus to
Russia and of Ukrainians and Belarusians to Ukraine and Belarus
can happen only in the event of military conflict between
the republics. Although in Ukraine, for example, there are
even now forces prepared to instigate this process.
The situation with Russians is even more complex
in Kazakhstan, where there are about 6 million of them
(one-fourth of all Russians living in former Union republics
outside the Russian Federation). There is a large flow of
Russian migrants from kazakhstan. This trend is growing.
It is possible to forecast three avenues and,
consequently, three periods of the migration of Russians to
Russia. An active migration of first- and
second-generation Russians is expected from Turkmenistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
Between 30 and 50 percent of the Russian-speaking
population intend to emigrate from there.
Some 18-20 percent of Russians intend to leave Latvia,
Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia. Up to
11 percent of Russians express desire to leave Ukraine and
Belarus.
According to poll results, about 2 million Russians
intend to move to Russia today because they feel persecuted
along national and linguistic lines.
Both now and in the future the forced migrants from Union
republics are mainly engineers, technicians, skilled industrial
workers, teachers, and physicians, in other words strictly urban
people who will be unable to settle in the large cities because
of residence permit problems. They cannot buy or build housing
in towns because the law forbids it. This is why many of
them perceive their situation as hopeless. There is hardly any
need to comment on the political views of present and future
migrants or their attitude toward the new political and economic
realities which have turned them into outcasts.
There are six specialized and transit reception points for
refugees open and functioning on Russia's territory. There is
discussion of the possibility of setting up similar points and
regional migration services in every oblast.
The Committee for Migration Affairs proceeds from the
premise
that this is not only a calamity but also, to a certain extent,
a benefit for Russia. The government is beginning to realize
that the reception and settlement of migrants will require large
investments, but those returning to their historical motherland
are almost the most enterprising, skilled, and industrious part
of the nation.
A Public Committee for the Settlement of Forced Migrants is
functioning. In just under one year it has "processed" about 1
million persons and has helped 20,000.
But the work on migration problems is fragmented, there
is no coordination at state level, and resources are being
wasted. Many categories of migrants have found themselves
altogether outside the sphere of state regulation. It is
clear that the Federal Migration Service will not be able
to cope with the swelling flood of migrants on its own.
The situation calls for immediate action. There is need for
a package of interlinked measures and coordinated actions by
state migration organs, the Foreign Ministry, the Committee for
Emergency Situations, the State Committee for Nationalities
Affairs, and the public organizations. In other words, there is
need for a nationwide federal program for help to our
compatriots. Furthermore, this program must be given
top priority from the material-financial and the
political-diplomatic points of view alike.
The state's policy toward migration needs more than just
serious amendments. Bearing in mind the provisional qualitative
and quantitative appraisals of migration and its sociopolitical
consequences, we are talking about actually elaborating a
new, all-embracing, and effective migration policy. Its
main actions and principles would appear to be the following:
Help for forced migrants must include not only the provision of
compensation, land, credits, and employment information, but
also the lifting of all restrictions on residence permits and
the choice of place of residence. Migrants, together with all
other Russians, must be given equal rights to buy and sell at
Russia's housing and labor markets and not be made hostages of
"supreme state interests."
The swelling or subsidence of migration processes will
depend, at the very least, on political decisions by the
leaderships of various republics about protecting the rights of
ethnic minorities and the pace at which the "indigenization" of
the republics' populations proceeds.
There must be no delay in elaborating more precise
guidelines in mutual relations between former USSR republics and
components of the Russian Federation.
It is obvious, without any additional research, that today
we
need:
-- to conclude between the sovereign states -- former USSR
republcis -- a treaty on the rights of ethnic minorities
to work, education, and cultural and national autonomy;
-- to do some additional work on the Federation Treaty
between components of the Russian Federation. It is necessary
to define and unconditionally ensure economic, social, and
political guarantees for refugees, victims of interethnic
conflicts, and forced migrants regardless of their nationality,
religion, ideological beliefs, or the regions whence they have
arrived;
-- to conclude between the Russian Federation components an
agreement defining the amount, procedure, and mechanism of
compensation for refugees and forced migrants and having the
damage they have suffered compensated either by the responsible
side or from the state budget;
-- to legislatively guarantee the representation of
different ethnic groups in the Russian Federation at the organs
of power, taking more effectively and more deeply into
account the ethnic problems and interests of different peoples
in economic, social, and cultural policy;
-- to constitutionally define the diverse national
movements reflecting the interests of various ethnic groups,
including those without their own national and ethnic formations
on the Russian Federation's territory;
-- to proclaim a moratorium on the transformation of
the territories of former autonomous formations whose objective
is to reshape existing borders
-- to implement measures to equalize and raise living
standards in different national-state formations;
-- to elaborate unified programs for the socioeconomic
and cultural development of regions where different ethnic
groups are concentrated (the Northern Caucasus, the Volga
Valley, the Northwestern region, and others);
-- to define the geography of a better resettlement of
repatriates and the amount of resources needed for providing the
necessary facilities;
-- to prevent the excessive concentration of migrants
in individual regions of the country like, for example,
Stavropol and Krasnodar Krays and some others;
-- to promote an improvement of the psychological
climate surrounding migrants and to define sanctions
against organs of power and citizens fanning enmity between the
local population and migrants;
-- to make much better use of the professional
potential of workers and engineers from among forced migrants
and refugees;
-- to organize the retraining of migrants with a view
to reducing the army of forced unemployed;
-- to encourage entrepreneurial activity by
migrants (temporary benefits in the taxation of small
business);
-- to form special budget and extrabudget funds for the
effective resolution of these and other emerging problems.
The republics' parliaments must revisit the problem of the
Russian language's status. It must be given the status of state
language wherever it is used by the majority of the population.
This approach is in line with international norms and would
obviously promote the further harmonization of interstate
relations.
There also is a pressing need to conclude interstate
agreements on human rights with all former Union republics.
Monitoring of their fulfillment could be carried out at both
state and public level. The status of economic relations with
various states must depend on the observance of these
international agreements and the principles of international law.
It is expedient to support the creation of trade and
economic
centers in Moscow and Russia for Russian communities abroad, to
assist Russians in enrolling in higher and specialized
educational establishments, and to sponsor and support Russian
schools and the Russian language and culture.
All peoples of Russia are fraternal for the Russian people.
Our people desire to live in peace and friendship with the
peoples of all other countries. Our concern about the fate of
Russian people is not aimed against other peoples and states.
Russia's path leads through peaceful solution of
problems and mutual cooperation to universal and just peace.
5. Problems of Russia's Economic Mutual Relations with CIS
Countries
The rate of the slump in production and inflation
continued to grow in CIS countries in 1993. The government of
not a single CIS republic succeeded in halting the process of
economic decline. On the whole, the total volume of industrial
production in the Community was reduced by 20 percent in
comparable prices over the year.
The "shared" slump was not affected to any large degree by
the different nature and pace of economic reforms in different
countries. In the conditions of "transparent" borders and
unified money circulation within the ruble zone, the lack of
coordination in economic activity hurts the finances of
"neighbors." The imbalance in reciprocal deliveries has already
evolved into an imbalance in the international settlements of
CIS countries.
On the whole, it is possible to agree with the opinion of
World Bank associates K. Mikhalopoulos and D. Tarr: "The
situation as regards trade and payments in the former Soviet
republics was distinguished by chaos, which reflected the
existence of a series of problems. The disorganization of the
credit, monetary, and payments system was at the heart of these
problems.
"The main problem is that the reduction of interrepublic
trade will promote the further decline of the volume of output
and incomes. Therefore, political strategists will have to
create mechanisms for the transition period which would
help the new states to restore the effective flow of trade and
avoid further serious breaches of this flow in the short term,
supporting in the longer term the restructuring of their economy
and its integration in the world economy." After all, the
sharply increased dependence of each CIS state on the external
markets becomes a condition for the functioning of their
economies. As a matter of fact, these realities are only
just being realized and taken into account in the economic
practice of CIS countries.
On the whole, as 1993 has shown, the stepping up of the
economies' "external" dependence will continue. This dependence
will be most graphically demonstrated in the sphere of
satisfying the CIS countries' energy needs.
"Sovereignization" has undermined Russia's potential as
energy supplier. Let us add for objectivity's sake that
cutbacks in the rate of oil extraction started four years ago.
According to estimates by Russia's Ministry of Fuel and Energy,
oil extraction dropped by a further 50 million tonnes in 1993,
in other words will reach only 340 million tonnes. If this pace
of reducing the extraction of black gold is maintained, then in
the very near future the fuel and energy complex will be working
to meet only Russia's own needs, which today stand at 240
million tonnes.
Oil exports increased more than threefold, but
this increase was accompanied by a reduction of deliveries to
CIS countries by an average of 50 percent. In this context,
Russia could be suspected of waging a "cold war" against Ukraine
and the Baltic and Central Asian countries. But such an
approach would be based on inertia of thought. Facts prove
whether it is advantageous for Russia to deliver oil products to
the former republics. Russia delivered its output (primarily
raw materials which are competitive on the world markets) to
nearby foreign countries at prices equivalent on average to
30-40 percent of world prices, and acquired from nearby foreign
countries output at prices equivalent to about 70 percent of
world prices. Moreover, in many instances Russia often failed
to receive any payment at all for its exports. For example,
having delivered to nearby foreign countries about 50 million
tonnes of oil to a total value of $6.5 billion, by way of
payment it received machinery and equipment worth only $700
million.
But Russia's external economic dependence was also
increasing and has almost trebled, having reached 14-15 percent
of GNP. This is more than in India and Japan, let alone the
United States. External dependence demands additional foreign
currency resources for the economy's functioning. Naturally,
some of the sources are gas, oil, and oil products.
Coming back to the idea of "cold war" against Ukraine, it is
appropriate to recall one contentious problem: Last year
Ukraine sold abroad, at world prices of course, 8 million
tonnes out of the 33.5 million tonnes of oil it had received
from Russia. According to some estimates, the amount earned
from this deal is equal to, for example, the costs of building a
major international airport at, say, Novosibirsk, capable of
earning an annual profit to the tune of $700-800 million.
Russia's economy today bears the heavy burden of additional
export and import expenditures associated with transit charges
for crossing the territory of neighboring states, but the safety
of goods in transit is not guaranteed, not even by Ukraine. Of
course, the press cites numerous facts about Russia's debt to
other CIS republics, but the overall balance is this:
Russia had a positive balance of about R750 billion.
Similar trends will also persist next year, even though the
government has taken a series of measures to put an end to
nonpayments.
Appraising the situation in Russia's economic ties with
nearby foreign countries, it can be said that 1993 saw the
"start of sobering up from euphoria" in the CIS. It is, of
course, premature to conclude that the balance of centrifugal
and centripetal forces shows that the latter are stronger. But
this awakening, coupled with disappointments and lost illusions,
has also brought in a certain proportion of common sense.
Section V: V. The Creation of Favorable International
Conditions for the Implementation of Reforms in Russia
1. Existing Realities
In order to elaborate Russia's strategy in the sphere of
national and international security, it is necessary to analyze
the position it occupies in the world and the essence of its
international interests as determined by the profound
changes of the last few years. There are four main factors
making up the system of Russia's policy guidelines at least for
the 1990's.
THE FIRST is the fact that the Soviet Union has
disintegrated, thus putting an end to the world's bipolar
structure. There has been a radical change in the
geopolitical role played by Russia, which has become a component
of the world community. Russia has inherited from the USSR 75
percent of its territory, 51 percent of its population, 60
percent of fixed production assets (in terms of value), and 76
percent of enterprises producing means of production. It
accounts for 90 percent of oil extraction, 73 percent of gas
extraction, 63 percent of electricity generation, 80 percent of
crude oil exports, and almost 100 percent of natural gas
exports. It procuces more than one-half of the GNP produced in
the USSR in 1990.
But Russia is not just smaller than the USSR in size -- it
has found itself in a fundamentally new environment to the west
and to the south, where the former Soviet republics lie.
Furthermore, some of them have been profoundly hit by domestic
instability, they are extremely susceptible to external
influences, and are in conflict with one another. The paradox
is that formally these are foreign countries as far as Russia is
concerned. In fact, however, they remain inseparably linked
with it both by their common historical past and by the
multitude of living economic, cultural, social, and
psychological bonds.
THE SECOND FACTOR. Russia is experiencing a most
profound economic and sociopolitical crisis whose solution still
lies far into the future. At the same time, by dint of its
size and of the political and strategic legacy inherited from
the USSR, Russia remains one of the world's leading countries.
It will not be at all simple for Russia to find its place in
the international arena.
Russia's new leadership bears the burden of a difficult twin
task: To create a new system of foreign and domestic policy,
turing it into a catalyst of radical market reforms, and at the
same time to overcome the burden of problems inherited from the
past.
THE THIRD FACTOR. The Russian Federation as a
genuinely democratic republic. Russia no longer has a
planned economy, but it still has not acquired a market economy.
The unitary state has collapsed, but the best possible balance
between central and local power has yet to be found.
Furthermore, the Federation today faces the threat of disunity
and fragmentation into "separate principalities."
Finally, THE FOURTH FACTOR is associated with
changes in the surrounding world.
We are witnessing the onset of a more traditional but
also a much more complex time of multilateral diplomacy,
intricacy of contradictions and coincidence of states'
interests, shifting coalitions, and limited political
goals. The threat of a universal war is declining, but
there is a growing danger of local conflicts fraught with
escalation of combat operations in various regions.
All this indicates that the maintenance of peace in the
future will require active work by international and regional
organizations to ensure collective security, as well as joint
peacemaking actions by the powers.
Proceeding from what has been said above, what are our
fatherland's main foreign policy priorities?
At present Russia has three interlinked supreme foreign
policy priorities.
The first is to ensure political stability in the
country, prevent war, and settle armed conflicts on the
territory of the former USSR, both within and between individual
republics, primarily by political means.
The second is to prevent the emergence of
hegemonic powers in Europe, South Asia, and the Far East which
would strive to extend their influence to regions in the former
USSR where the situation is unstable.
The third is to preserve the status of a great
power occupying a special position in the world's geostrategic
structure.
The main point for Russia is to ensure political stability
and to prevent and settle conflicts across the former USSR.
Should instability and potential conflicts there grow further,
this would threaten both Russia's territorial integrity and its
economic and democratic reforms. The maximum (desirable) task
is economic and political integration on the basis of equal
rights, voluntariness, and mutual advantage for CIS countries,
primarily Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. If the
desirable proves unattainable, then the vitally important
minimum task for the Russian Federation is to prevent the
creation of a hostile coalition.
Russia is proceeding from the premise that the Helsinki
principle of the inviolability of borders must provide the
foundation of mutual relations between the former USSR
republics. Any revision of borders would be permissible
only via peaceful talks. Sanctions, including the use of force,
would be permissible only in the event that a country's
leadership pursues a policy of genocide toward ethnic
minorities, and this is recognized and defined as genocide under
UN rules.
Germany, Turkey, Japan, China, and others are potentially
capable of posing the threat of regional hegemony to Russia in
the 1990's. Of course, nobody is accusing the aforementioned
countries of currently acting along this avenue. But a sober
forecast of the shifting balance of forces and of the
geopolitical situation makes it mandatory to consider the
possibility of changes in their policy which are not even
contemplated at present.
The United States is Russia's most important partner in
countering regional hegemony. The remaining centers of power
are still not capable of really influencing the situation in hot
spots, be they in the Near East, Angola or Yugoslavia, the
Caucasus or Afghanistan.
Russia is planning to pursue this priority using different
methods in different regions. In Europe, for example, the
guarantee for preventing any military-political expansionism by
leading states is perceived in the development of European
integration and the stregnthening of the CSCE as an organ of
collective security and collective response to any potential
aggressor.
In the past, the USSR used to advocate the simultaneous
disbandment of NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization [WPO]. Not
only has the NATO bloc not been disbanded, but is is actually
building up its might. This organization cannot be smoothly
transformed into a European security structure. We believe that
a stabilization of the situation in the Russian Federation on
the basis of market economy and the development of democracy
will create the need for a fundamentally new international
organization, possibly on the basis of utilizing and developing
elements from the structures of the EC, the West European Union,
NATO, and the CSCE and with participation by Russia, the United
States, and Canada.
The Russian Federation's policy in Asia Minor [Malaya Aziya]
and South Asia could take the form of direct, including
military, resistance to outside interference by agreement with
the republics under threat. The nature of the multipolar world
adjoining the Transcaucasus is much more complex. Russia's
partner here is objectively Iran, and Turkey in South Asia. The
maintenance of a certain balance between them is in line with
Russia's interests, despite the fact that the West would
obviously give preference to Turkey as a member of NATO.
The maintenance of the U.S. military presence in Japan is
in line with Russia's interests in the Far East. In the event
of withdrawal by the United States and of China's headlong
economic and military strengthening, Japan's reaction could only
take the form of accelerated remilitarization. A clash between
the two huge powers over Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Southeast
Asia could also involve Russia in the conflict.
Any sharp change of the balance of forces in favor of China
or Japan and the emergence of hegemonic aspirations in one of
the two powers could pose a direct threat to Russia's Far East.
It is obvious that Russia needs to retain its positions as a
great world power. This means Russia's participation in the UN
Security Council as one of its permanent members and its role in
other international structures. It also means participating, as
far as possible, in the maintenance of peace and the repulsion
of aggression, including along the lines of peacemaking forces
within the framework of the Security Council, the CSCE, and
others, and genocide-terminating operations sanctioned by the
United Nations and regional international organizations.
Russia advocates active prevention of the proliferation of
nuclear and other mass destruction weapons, a tougher regime to
control the deliveries of missiles and missile technology, and
the elaboration of agreed quotas and restructions on the arms
trade as a whole.
The problem of Russia's military-strategic parity with the
United States deserves special mention. It will be necessary to
continue the mutual balanced reduction of Russian Federation and
U.S. strategic nuclear forces on new terms. Here we need a
transition from mutual deterrence through the ability to deliver
a crushing counterstrike on the aggressor to joint management of
strategic stability. This is why talks will constitute the
sphere of special mutual relations and mutual interests between
Russia and the United States.
2. National Interests
Let us examine Russia's specific national
interests from the viewpoint of international security.
Retaining the great-power status. This is
Russia's natural right, vested in it thanks to its economic
potential, the successes it has achieved in science, culture,
military might, and so on.
Guaranteeing Eurasian stability. Whenever the
Eurasian balance of forces has been disrupted, Russia has
traditionally been the main victim.
Therefore the desire by any one state or coalition of
states to dominate Eurasia will not be in Russia's fundamental
national interests.
Nor can our interests be served by attempts to isolate
Russia, squeeze it out of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea,
reduce foreign economic commodity turnover, change its
structure, and so on.
Ensuring political and economic stability in states all
along Russia's borders. This is a key interest for any
power, but the problem of preventing the emergence of conflict
zones along the borders is especially important for Russia,
which has the world's longest land border, and with its complex
relations with neighbors which are rooted in the past.
Parrying and preventing potential threats. The
world in which we are living now is a world of power
partnerships and power rivalry within the framework of rigid
durable structures.
Despite the changes which have occurred in the last few
years
-- especially the end of the "Cold War," the improvement of
relations between the United States and Russia, the
rapprochement to a certain extent between East and West Europe,
and so on -- more sophisticated principles of power balance and
power collaboration still remain the foundation of contemporary
international relations. Indicators like economic, scientific,
and intellectual potential play a greater role in the system of
state might. But the military component still
dominates the structure of interstate power.
Real military nuclear-missile confrontation on a global
level
remains only between Russia and the United States for the time
being. The continuation of nuclear confrontation between our
countries is objective and inevitable in the foreseeable future.
Furthermore, the growing nuclear-missile potential of the PRC
and West Europe also poses a military threat for Russia in the
1990's.
Finally, Russia's cultural security and its
originality are threatened by the West's liberal individualistic
ideology, to the exent that collectivism still dominates
awareness and thinking and today's Russian reality.
At the regional level it is necessary to proceed from the
fact that, in the event of exacerbation of the domestic crisis,
virtually all of Russia's neighbors could potentially raise
sundry territorial claims. Although the economic, cultural, and
other categories of security are not obviously linked with
military security, many armed conflicts have started with
mistakes committed in nonmilitary spheres. Therefore the
prevention of threats to Russia must be actively waged across
the entire spectrum. This is Russia's main national interest.
3. Foreign Policy
We deem it important to single out the following basic
objectives and guidelines for defining the strategy of Russia's
development and behavior in the world community of peoples.
The Russian Federation is constantly present in the arena of
world political life. It is a different matter that Russia's
domestic situation and its geopolitical environment at present
do not favor the pursuit of an active global policy, and its
regional interests will call for the greatest of efforts in the
next few years. The possession of a mighty nuclear potential
does not change the situation, either. For the first time in
many years, our country is in a situation whereby it does not
face any definite or in any way significant external military
threat.
Territorial disputes involve countries which will certainly
not resort to military force for their solution provided, of
course, Russia remains a united state. All this is
exceptionally advantageous for concentrating the country's
efforts on the solution of the domestic tasks concerning radical
transformations and the problems constantly emerging in mutual
relations with CIS countries.
Relations with Germany, at least over the last two
centuries, have occupied a central position among the
priorities of Russia's foreign policy. But the experience
of the 20th century, with its two world wars, the cruel battles
without precedent in history, and the huge sacrifices and
destruction suffered by both sides, would seem to indicate the
irreconcilability of the two countries' interests. True enough,
the period between the two wars produced a whole range of
mutually advantageous economic -- and even military-technical --
cooperation. That was the period when the average German
realized that the situation in Germany develops well whenever
its relations with Russia are good.
Russia needs a new East Asian and Pacific policy.
Its backbone must be provided by relations with China as its
main partner not only in the region but also in the broader
global context. The positive potential in the history of
Russian-Chinese relations is much more powerful than the
negative. Both countries' interest in the preservation of each
other's integrity is a most important factor of Russian-Chinese
collaboration. The complexity of the problem of the Korean
state's unification also prompts China and Russia alike in the
direction of a unified approach toward maintaining the
immutability of World War II's results in the Far East. Both
countries are reliable partners in the cause of unconditionally
observing the Yalta Conference decisions on the Far East, in
other words confirming Outer Mongolia's status and the fact that
the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin belong to Russia.
It is possible to define the following long-term
interests of the security of the Russian Federation:
-- Preserving general stability in the world, capable of
resisting local armed conflicts.
-- Eliminating the seats of tension close to the Russian
Federation's territory and fraught with the explosion of armed
conflicts.
-- Maintaining normal relations with all states, primarily
with European and Asian states, and elevating these relations to
the level of partnership.
-- Strengthening and developing the peacemaking potential of
the United Nations, the CSCE, and others with a view to the
earliest possible political settlement of conflicts threatening
to evolve into armed clashes.
-- The further deepening of the process of disarmament
offers
an opportunity to reduce the Russian Armed Forces to the minimum
level necessary to ensure external security and honor the
Russian Federation's international commitments.
-- Restoring the Russian Federation's international prestige
as the legitimate heir of the former Soviet Union and a great
power recognized by the world community.
The fewer the forces being diverted externally, the faster
will the establishment of Russian statehood proceed. In the
conditions of the world's deepening interdependence, this can
happen if the international situation remains stable for a
number of years on end, without armed conflicts capable of
shaking this stability.
At the same time, it is impossible to rule out the
probability of local conflicts flaring in regions where there
are confrontations along religious, nationalist, or other lines.
Unfortunately, these regions lie along the former Soviet Union's
southwestern and southern borders.
It is in Russia's interests to eliminate any local conflicts
developing in the world by political means and as swiftly as
possible. This is why the Russian Federation must support by
all possible means the political peacemaking potential of the
United Nations, the CSCE, and other international organizations.
It is in our interests to follow, jointly with the other
powers, the path of deeper reductions of armaments and armed
forces, guided by the principle of sufficiency for defense.
Sensible reductions of Russia's Armed Forces and armaments will
not only ease the economic burden but will also make it possible
to utilize the high technological potential of defense
enterprises for the Russian economy's recovery. When
determining the size of the armed forces Russia needs, it is
also necessary to consider its commitments for the maintenance
of universal peace.
Russia's medium-term interests include normalizing
and stabilizing both its domestic situation and the situation in
its immediate environment -- the CIS countries, Yugoslavia, and
Afghanistan. They include:
-- Normalizing and stabilizing relations with CIS countries,
reaching agreement with them both on the coordination of common
policy and on specific actions in the sphere of mutual security.
-- Elaborating and introducing a system of collaboration
with
NATO countries, strengthening ties between CIS countries in the
defense sphere.
-- Achieving an accord, acceptable to Russia, on settling
the
question concerning the southern islands of the Kurils chain so
as to lift the barrier to the development of relations of
cooperation with Japan.
-- Agreement with the PRC, enshrining the fact that the
sides
have no reciprocal territorial claims.
-- Normalizing relations with the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran
triangle with a view to elaborating an agreement on mutual
recognition, inviolability of borders, and establishment of
cooperation, including in the defense sphere, but without in any
way infringing upon the close relations with India.
-- Establishing normal relations with all states which will
emerge in the place of the former Yugoslav Federation.
Special attention must be given to conflicts flaring both
within and between CIS countries, including armed conflicts.
There is no time to be lost, therefore the task of
normalizing and stabilizing relations with the CIS countries
cannot be put off and must be included among medium-term tasks.
Awareness of the community of interests in ensuring
collective defense will be an important factor of the
development of centripetal forces.
The next two to four years will be especially important
for the Russian Federation's future. It will be virtually
impossible to resolve the tasks of economic revival without
eliminating conflicts and their potential sources. Proceeding
from this premise, it is possible to define the following
short-term interests of the Russian Federation's
security:
-- Terminating interethnic conflicts in regions adjoining
the
Russian Federation's Caucasian border.
-- Reaching accord on an economic area within the framework
of the former Soviet Union and the appropriate border regime
between states.
-- Implementing the accord concerning the state border
security regime along the entire perimeter of the former Soviet
Union.
-- Reaching accord between the Russian Federation and other
CIS states on questions of protection against nuclear attack and
of strengthening the international regime for the
nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
The sobering up which is occurring in CIS states in the
economic sphere and the growing awareness of the consequences of
the breakdown of economic ties indicate that this avenue could
successfully serve the solution of the tasks of ensuring
Russia's general safety and security. It is obvious that, in
order to organize a single economic area, it will become
necessary to solve the questions of border regimes both between
CIS states and along the former Soviet Union's perimeter.
Unless this is done, it will be impossible to avoid economic
sabotage, close the external borders (otherwise the Russian
Federation's borders will also be penetrable), halt the rise of
crime and especially of organized crime, and so on.
The most vulnerable sector of the Russian Federation's
border lies in the regions of interethnic conflicts. It is
therefore in our national interests to extinguish all
interethnic conflicts along the Caucasian border and achieve the
restoration of peace and tranquility there.
In today's conditions it is impossible to ensure the
security
of borders between CIS countries without help from the Armed
Forces. From the political viewpoint it would be
disadvantageous for Russia to become the first to introduce
armed protection of borders with CIS countries. It would
therefore be expedient to begin with a general accord on border
regime: What will be the nature of borders, the extent to which
Armed Forces will participate in their protection, and so on.
It would be expedient if the new states were to use their
own
forces to protect their borders. This applies especially to the
southern borders. This section of the border has been closed in
Russia's interests, but it is unfair for Russia alone to bear
the responsibility and costs.
It is in the CIS states' national interests to receive
guarantees against nuclear attack, the likelihood of which
has to be taken into consideration in today's world. The
Russian Federation is in a position to back up such guarantees.
At the same time, however, we are interested in having all CIS
states join the regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
The nuclear powers today are interested in strengthening the
regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and ruling out any
access to them for adventurist and irresponsible politicians.
Furthermore, joint actions by all nuclear powers in this sphere
promote the development of relations of trust between them,
which is also in line with the Russian Federation's interests.
4. Threats to the Preservation of State Stability and
Security. Measures for Their Neutralization.
The idea of "superpower status," based upon unrestrained
militarization, was the primary cause of the Soviet Union's
defeat in the "cold war" and its subsequent collapse. The
Russian Federation's return to such a policy would pose the
greatest threat to its statehood and security.
As for the external threat, its nature has changed. Whereas
previously the armed threat originated primarily from the West,
there is no worry originating from this direction at present.
At the same time, it would be premature to rule out military
danger from the southwest in the event of any protraction of the
armed conflict in Yugoslavia, capable of involving neighboring
countries. The conflict's religious aspect is especially
dangerous, because we are talking about three faiths with
adherents in many countries, including the Russian Federation.
Romania could also produce a seat of tension, or rather an
outburst of Romanian great power chauvinism which has not
abandoned the idea of re-creating a "Greater Romania"
incorporating Moldova and the Dniester Region lands. Should
this happen, any such actions by Romania will inevitably prompt
reactions in Bulgaria (the Dobruja question), in Hungary
(Transylvania), and even in Russia (the Dniester Republic).
A dangerous seat of military threat could develop in the
region adjoining the Caucasian and Central Asian CIS states.
Islamic fundamentalism comprises mighty forces and, in today's
situation, it nurtures the hope of creating a bloc of Islamic
states under the auspices of Pakistan, Iran, and -- less likely
-- Turkey. Such a bloc will inevitably try to include in its
orbit Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. It
cannot be ruled out that it might attempt to influence
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan as well.
When evaluating this danger, it is necessary to take into
account the changed nature of mutual relations within the
triangle of the Russian Federation, the Arab countries, and
Israel. The normalization of the Russian Federation's relations
with Israel and the latter's "sustenance" through emigration
from Russia, coupled with the fact that the Russian Federation
has to a certain extent distanced itself from Libya and Iraq,
are providing grounds for growing anti-Russian feelings in the
Arab countries.
Finally, it would be a mistake to completely rule out the
possibility of military pressure from the southeast or from
China. Should this happen, demographic pressure will not be the
only factor in operation.
Elaboration of national consensus on foreign policy
questions.
It is an axiom that a state is strong through the unity of
its citizens' positions. States have overcome the difficulties
facing them most easily when there has been a community of views
among their citizens.
It is important to make the majority of the population aware
of the benefits and even the inevitability of Russia's present
course of friendly relations with all countries while reducing
the volume of its external commitments, primarily those imposed
in the past for ideological reasons.
Continuation of the course of achieving accord on
disarmament questions.
The widespread differences of opinion on whether the course
of achieving accords on further reductions of armed forces and
armaments is advantageous for Russia are, to a certain extent,
harmful to the elaboration of national consensus on foreign
policy questions.
The time has come to abandon propaganda declarations like
the
complete ban and withdrawal of nuclear weapons and to take a
realistic point of view: A certain quantity of nuclear
potential is a guarantee of security both for the Russian
Federation and the CIS states.
In addition, it is necessary to aim, both now and in the
foreseeable future, for a rational regulation of the balance of
the nuclear missile potentials of Russia, the United States,
Britain, France, and China, which remains the stabilizing
foundation of the contemporary world order. This regulation
ought to be implemented through deep cuts of nuclear arms, the
strengthening of the regime of nonproliferation of mass
destruction weapons and missile technologies, and the creation
of a global system for the world community's protection against
nuclear missile attack, as proposed by us.
The switch to this point of view will facilitate talks with
the other nuclear powers, including talks on the most rational
level of nuclear deterrence.
It is also important to emphasize that we are hoping for
understanding of our desire for real nuclear disarmament by
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. We are counting on their
joining as soon as possible the Treaty on the Nonproliferation
of Nuclear Weapons as nonnuclear states, and ratifying the START
I Treaty. Unless this is done, the new treaty's future will be
problematic.
Utilization of NATO's experience.
In the process of coordinating defense and military
organizational development with the CIS countries, it is
necessary to take into account the experience of both the WPO
and NATO. The development of political ties in NATO started
considerably earlier and along a multitude of avenues, including
ties with the public through the North Atlantic Assembly.
Consequently, the weak ties within the WPO did not withstand
the political trials, whereas ties within NATO enabled this
organization to adapt to changing circumstances.
Shifting the provisions of the Fundamentals of Military
Doctrine to the practical plane.
A cementing role in mutual relations with CIS countries in
the military sphere could be played by shifting the Russian
Federation's defensive doctrine to the practical plane. Joint
peacemaking operations by the armed forces are most profitable.
The need for such operations in the short and medium term will
remain great in the light of the dangerous instability in a
series of regions of the former USSR.
A considerable role in the maintenance of normal mutual
relations with nearby foreign countries could be played by the
pooling of efforts to create a common system of CIS air defense,
as well as a missile early warning system utilizing missile
early warning facilities sited in regions of the former USSR
(the Crimea, Moldova, Belarus, and elsewhere).
Transition to mixed manpower acquisition for the Armed
Forces: on contract basis and under the Law on Military
Service.
The growing complexity of combat equipment raises with
increasing urgency the question of the Armed Forces'
professionalization, and this line must be adopted as the main
line for all military organizational development plans. At the
same time, it must be borne in mind that the country must train
a reserve for the event of unforeseen circumstances, and this
demands the retention of the military service draft on certain
conditions.
Such a dual structure could also prove suitable for the
Internal Troops: Supplementing the cadre stength from the
reserve. Such a structure has been successfully functioning for
a long time now in the United States and Britain. The
attachment of the reserve to territories would help solve
political-nationality tasks by creating a sense of confidence
and self-respect among ethnic groups and nationalities. The
attainment of this goal will also be promoted by the Cossack
movement's revival. The inclusion of Cossacks in the general
reserve will make it possible to consolidate the Cossack
movement's positive aspects.
Final uprooting of wars as means for solving
international and interethnic conflicts.
The development of collaboration between states, the
elaboration of mutually acceptable positions on key issues, and
economic and political integration are increasingly becoming the
predominant trend in international relations. Military force is
correspondingly and gradually losing its importance as an
instrument for exerting direct influence. It is becoming
more of an "ultimate" means for preventing any destabilizing
development of events and for containing or terminating any
aggression threatening our national security.
This trend is exceptionally important for Russia. At present
we cannot rely on the Armed Forces alone. They were created
primarily on the basis of global strongarm confrontation between
East and West and are not adequately capable of meeting the
changed spectrum of threats to our national security. The
current transition period in military organizational development
is associated with the disintegration of the former USSR Armed
Forces, the difficulties of establishing new relations between
the republics in the defense sphere, the complexities of
material backup for the disarmament and conversion programs, and
finally the launch of military reform.
Russia military strength will, without any doubt,
continue to serve as an "ultimate" means of deterrence against
external threats and of ensuring our national security.
Taking into account the objective reduction of the role
played by military strength as the main instrument for
protecting Russia's national interests, the foremost task now is
to create a system of collective responsibility by CIS states
and by states -- former USSR republics -- which have not joined
the Community for the maintenance of peace in the region, the
earliest possible resolution of conflicts on its territory, and
the elimination of seats of armed confrontation. Russia could
initiate the creation of a Regional Security Council which, in
its activity, would implement the UN ideas of collective
security.
It is well known that the breeding ground for ethnic
conflicts is created primarily by violations of human rights,
the trampling of ethnic minorities' interests, the insulting of
national dignity, and the most acute problem of protecting the
rights and interests of the Russian population in nearby foreign
countries. It is necessary to juridically formulate
guarantees of legal defense, including the right to hold
dual citizenship. This would be promoted by the creation
of an International Commission for the Scrutiny
[identifikatsiya] of National Legislations.
There have been forecasts of the inevitability of ensuring
collective security by force and using peacemaking forces in hot
spots on the territory of the former USSR. Without ignoring the
role of the United Nations and the CSCE, it has to be clearly
realized that the conflicts are occurring within the zone
of Russian interests. This is admitted by the parties to
the conflicts themselves when appealing to none other but
Russia. Proceeding from this fact, it is necessary for the
United Nations and the international community to give Russia's
peacemaking forces a mandate to operate in the region's
conflicts zones under UN auspices and with the status of "blue
helmets."
One of Russia's most important foreign policy objectives is
its participation in the strengthening of Eurasian security.
Russia cannot accept the tendency toward NATO's expansion via
the admission of East European countries to the bloc. This
approach is akin to the building of a new "movable Berlin wall."
This would require the solution of many questions, both
purely military and economic. The strategic grouping of
Russia's troops in the West now is such that the potential
admission of former WPO countries to the North Atlantic bloc
would necessitate its radical restructuring involving huge
economic expenditures, let alone any other losses the country's
national economy will incur.
The formation of a collective security system must be
switched to a new track: By proposing the disbandment of NATO
and the formation of a new, broader, and more open structure
with participation by Russia and the East European countries
(possibly through the CSCE).
The positive experience accumulated by the CSCE must be
extended to other regions in the world. On the basis of Russian
interests, primarily to the Asia-Pacific region. By galvanizing
its foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region, Russia could
initiate the launch of a process similar to the CSCE in this
region and the holding of a summit conference (following the
Helsinki model). One of the stages of this process could be the
convening, on Russia's initiative, of the first Asia-Pacific
interparliamentary conference in, for example, Vladivostok.
Two specific initiatives are proposed: To hold talks to
define quotas for the arms trade and to create a permanent
Conference of Arms Exporting Countries within the framework of a
new international organization to be set up in the place of
COCOM [Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls].
There is full justification for placing ecology
issues among the series of international security problems.
The conclusion of an international convention on liability for
damage dome to the environment as a result of the nuclear arms
race could be an effective measure for the maintenance of
"international ecological security."
Two main trends dominate the West's policy at
present:
a) To use all possible means to push Russia into copying the
Western, primarily the U.S., model regardless of any
consequences for the country and the population.
b) To prevent Russia from taking full advantage of the
West's
modern technological achievements and drive it mainly toward the
production of raw materials, fuel, and semimanufactures, in
other words to sink the country in backwardness, in the "third
world."
Many people believe that any expectations that the West and
the United States will help the revival of a mighty and
independent Russia are at best naive. The West is increasingly
losing its interest in us because, first, we have lost our
former economic and military strength and, second, we are no
longer claiming to be creating a social alternative to the West.
At the same time, as can be seen from B. Clinton's speeches, in
the long term and by attracting resources for its modernization
from Germany and Japan and possibly from France, Italy, and
Britain, Russia could weaken competition between the Western
powers in the economic sphere.
It is also worth noting the question of reviving the bipolar
system but on a completely new basis. The idea of forming a
"second pole" is certainly not the product of abstract
imagination or a speculative project. The shortcomings and
dangers of the "monopolar system" make it necessary to consider
the alternative idea of a "second pole": The U.S. monopoly as
the sole world leader could tragically destabilize international
relations. By its very nature, the bipolar system offers a more
stable basis for cooperation between the centers of world
politics.
It will enable the "third world" countries, China, and
Russia
to protect their common and individual interests in a more or
less organized way and, consequently, to guarantee the greater
effectiveness of their efforts.
The creation of a "second pole" could also strengthen
military-political stability in the countries adjoining it and
could become an instrument for settling conflicts without the
West's interference.
A serious motivation for this could be provided by the need
to protect national cultural assets, to counter the expansion of
Western mass culture, and at the same time to pool efforts for
the shaping of competitive national cultures on the basis of the
peoples' own vital values and the renewal of their traditions.
Equal collaboration between all cultures could serve as a
counterweight to the hegemony of Western mass culture which is
being implanted.
Finally, a substantial justification for forming a "second
pole" is provided by the quest for a new type of civilization to
replace the dominant industrial-capitalist one, whose exhaustion
and crisis are increasingly obvious and universally recognized.
This objective could attract sympathy for the "second pole"
among many progressive streams in the West, which are concerned
with the quest for a new way of life.
Collaboration between the two centers would most probably
lead to positive changes in the nature and content of the first
pole's activity and give it a more realistic orientation. Even
the actual discussion of the problems of creating a "second
pole" could lead to favorable, albeit partial, positive changes.
In our opinion, bipolarity will accelerate the process of
forming a global system on the basis of the balance of interests
and become a step in that direction.
All of mankind, including the Atlantic center, is interested
in creating the "second pole" because it offers a program for
extrication from the crisis being experienced by the whole
world. Although the "second pole" is needed partly as a
counterweight to the first, their relations need not be
antagonistic but could be built on the principle of cooperation,
including cooperation between the United States and Russia.
A return to the bipolar model of the world is not the only
possible option. The multipolar system also has its advantages.
In any case, it is important to ensure that this system
guarantees stability and Russia occupies in it a position
befitting the status of a great power.
5. Disarmament Problems
Russia did not inherit any military-political allies from
the
USSR. It is objectively unable to maintain the mighty armed
forces which the Soviet Union had. In many directions, the
parameters of Russia's defense were moved far beyond the limits
of its state borders. Now the country either has no such
parameters, or they have ended up being unusually close to its
central regions.
The end of the "great confrontation" between the two
superpowers did not lead to the triumph of the principle of
nonuse of force in international affairs as proclaimed by the
United Nations, or to the disbandment of military-political
alliances created, or so the explanation went, to parry "the
Soviet military threat." Moreover, the sole remaining
"superpower" displays a noticeably stronger desire to impose its
will wherever it feels that U.S. interests exist, including the
Baltic countries.
There is no need to explain that if Russia intends to solve
its own problems guided by its own national
interests, it must be strong in every respect including --
by no means least -- in defense questions. We have the full
potential to do so.
This does not run counter to the long-term peacemaking
guidelines proclaimed by Russia's president in his January 1992
message to the UN Secretary General. The "principles of
effective global and regional military-political stability"
declared in this message also presuppose measures for mutual
disarmament. This is precisely why Russia officially took over
from the USSR the baton of reducing the military potentials of
states and easing the level of international tension, it
confirmed the commitments under international treaties and
agreements to which the Soviet side was a party, and also signed
in January 1993 the Russian-U.S. Treaty on the Further Reduction
and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II). Thus,
the track taken by Russia in the sphere of the disarmament
process is in line with the one which the USSR followed during
the last years of its existence. But the different
military-strategic conditions in which Russia now finds itself
demand of it the elaboration of new concepts and approaches
toward the solution of problems concerning the arms limitation
and reduction.
Nuclear Disarmament Problems
The SALT I and SALT II Soviet-U.S. agreements in the
strategic arms limitation sphere were underpinned by the
principle of equality and identical security which was agreed by
the sides. Its main criterion was the ensuring of
military-strategic equilibrium. This, in the sides' opinion, not
only coincided with the security interests of the partners in
the talks but also promoted the stabilization of the world
situation.
But the last Soviet-U.S. Treaty on the Reduction and
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I) contained
provisions making it possible to bypass this principle if
necessary.
The Treaty's shortcomings included not only the universally
known notional count of weapons which totally negated the sides'
initially proclaimed intention to reduce their strategic
potential by one-half, but also a series of provisions placing
the sides in unequal conditions.
For example, the Treaty imposes stricter limitations on
land-based ICBM's which have traditionally been the foundations
of the USSR's (and now of Russia's) strategic might. At the
same time, the most liberal interpretation has been applied to
reduction requirements for heavy bombers, in which the United
States enjoys a threefold advantage.
There is absolutely no justification for excluding from the
Treaty's effect the strategic sea-launched cruise missiles,
which are objectively more advantageous for the United States.
The Soviet side simply failed to obtain agreement from its
partners at the talks that the ABM Treaty should be observed
while the START I Treaty is in force. Consequently, the United
States retained the possibility to change the strategic
potential to its advantage by implementing the SDI program.
The START I Treaty has still not come into force. Despite
this, a new -- now Russian-U.S. -- Treaty on the Further
Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Weapons (START
II) was signed in January 1993 following comparatively brief
talks. But this treay is not flawless.
Suffice it to mention its provisions on the procedure for
the
conversion of ICBM's and submarine-launched ballistic missiles
from multiple-warhead to single-warhead and the "reorientation"
of 100 U.S. heavy bombers "for the performance of nonnuclear
tasks."
The START II Treaty's provisions potentially offer the U.S.
side an opportunity to re-install more than 4,500 nuclear
warheads on strategic delivery platforms within the briefest of
time frames. Bearing in mind that the total number of nuclear
warheads the sides may hold after the reductions should not
exceed 3,000-3,500 units, Russia runs the risk of finding itself
in a situation whereby the United States, having for some reason
denounced the START II Treaty, could very quickly double its
strategic nuclear potential. Under the terms of the Treaty,
Russia, should it wish to do the same, would not be able to
boost its potential by more than 900 units the same way.
Nonetheless, Russia has ratified the START I Treaty and has
expressed rediness to ratify the START II Treaty with all their
shortcomings and positive aspects.
At the same time, it is perfectly clear that the process of
the limitation and reduction of strategic arms will be
continued. At some stage it will be joined by other nuclear
powers. On what basis should these talks be conducted? What
should be their ultimate goal?
The question of complete elimination of nuclear weapons will
hardly be raised in the foreseeable future -- the other nuclear
powers are not raising this task even as an idea. The agenda
will evidently include the question of arriving at some maximum
level for strategic nuclear arms to correspond with the
so-called "minimum nuclear deterrence." Back in the past the
USSR expressed readiness to support this idea and to discuss and
agree its strategic meaning and basic criteria. It might
possibly be useful to repeat this attempt. Nevertheless,
regardless of whether this concept will be discussed on a
multilateral or bilateral (with the United States) basis,
Russia will have to determine: What, in its
military-strategic position, should be meant by "minimum nuclear
deterrence," and this should be the subsequent guiding principle
when elaborating positions for talks on strategic nuclear arms
and on nuclear arms in general. This will help prevent any
reduction of Russian nuclear forces below a certain critical
limit. It would not go amiss to also appraise the extent to
which this criterion corresponds with the START I and START II
Treaties.
When accpting the concept of "minimum nuclear deterrence" at
the talks, it is necessary to bear in mind that this decision
will inevitably necessitate the examination -- either in
parallel or jointly with strategic nuclear arms -- of the
questions of tactical nuclear arms, especially if they are
deployed so as to reach targets on the other side's territory,
including ship-based weapons, as well as the unconditional
observance of the ABM Treaty.
Limitation of Conventional Armed Forces and Their Armaments
The consistent process of disarmament must certainly become
the normal policy of any peaceloving state in the
post-confrontation period. Furthermore, the outbreaks of
interethnic and other regional conflicts testify that the
reduction of the potential of conventional armed forces and
armaments is a task as important as that of reducing strategic
and tactical nuclear potentials.
The continuation of talks on conventional armed forces and
armaments is especially topical for Russia. It is necessary not
only because it is becoming increasingly difficult to man and
maintain such large armed forces, but also because we will have
to honor committments under the 1990 Treaty on Conventional
Armed Forces in Europe, the party to which was the Soviet Union
and not Russia. This is not the same thing.
Therefore, strictly speaking, following the disappearance
from the military-political arena of one of the collective
parties to the Treaty -- the WPO -- and later on of the USSR,
new talks ought to be held on the reduction of conventional
armed forces in Europe and a new accord ought to be reached
taking into account the sharp changes in the situation in this
important region of the planet.
On 8 July 1992 Russia ratified the Treaty, under which it
also committed itself to the stage-by-stage reduction of
the numerical strength of its Army and Navy from 2.8 million to
2.1 million men by 1995 and to 1.5 million men by the year 2000.
At the same time, the NATO states did not embark on any
limitation and reduction of the numerical strength of their
armed forces and firmly refused to take naval forces -- one of
the most important components -- into account when determining
the military-strategic balance. Enjoying undisputed
superiority in naval armaments capable of delivering strikes
against land-based targets (carrier-borne aviation, sea-launched
cruise missiles), NATO was unwilling to lose this "imbalance."
This position is most typical of the entire "Western" approach
toward talks on the limitation of conventional armed forces in
Europe -- it envisaged the elimination of "imbalances" but only
in those categories of armaments where the WPO enjoyed the
advantage.
It is clear that any potential future talks cannot
leave the question of naval armaments outside the scope of
agreement, especially as regards armaments designed to strike
against land-based targets.
The very fact of the acceptance of commitments under an
accord elaborated for another state (the USSR) and for different
military-strategic conditions really goes beyond the framework
of ordinary common sense, which indicates that Russia
ought to accept and honor only commitments which have been
thoroughly and specifically elaborated for the Russian
conditions. Otherwise the situation may reach the point of
absurdity, as it did in 1993 during the withdrawal of troops
from Germany and the attempt to deploy them in the North
Caucasus Military District. It emerged that Russia could not do
this without breaching several provisions of the treaty it had
ratified. It also emerged that Russia cannot show any concern
for its southern flank as it sees fit, since it is constrained
by limitations under this treaty.
Much has been and is being said about the principle of
"sufficiency." There is hardly a single state in the world
which would declare that the military organizational development
of its armed forces is guided by the principle of
"insufficiency" or "supersufficiency." Therefore, the term of
simple "sufficiency" is meaningless. The term "defensive
sufficiency" or "sufficiency for defense" would be more
appropriate to the concept of Russia's defense policy. But the
meaning of even this term demands thorough elaboration.
Only when this term has been given specific content, in line
with the Russian state's military doctrine, it can and must
provide the basis of positions for subsequent talks on arms
limitation.
6. The Need To Improve the Mechanisms for Managing Military
Organizational Development
Any political programs of the leadership need a finetuned
mechanism for their implementation, otherwise they will remain
nothing but wishful thinking. In the sphere of military work,
we are still nurturing the illusion that we are talking only of
a partial reduction of the Armed Forces and a partial switch of
the military economy to the manufacture of national economic
output, and that the actual mechanism for managing military
organizational development can remain basically the same.
Fundamental documents in the defense sphere are being
implemented with difficulty. There is no doubt that the basic
provisions of the military doctrine will create the necessary
prerequisites for the organizational development of de facto new
Armed Forces for Russia, for the reliable protection of its
interests, for the elaboration of long-term military-technical
policy, for the creation and further development of
qualitatively new forces, and for the training and education of
the personnel. The military doctrine approved by the
president basically ensures that Russia will honor its
international commitments on the reduction of armaments and
Armed Forces and the maintenance of peace.
The specific application of the military doctrine in the
sphere of the military economy is defined in the president's
special edict No. 1850 of 11 November 1992.
Whereas only certain clarifying remarks can be made as
regards the doctrine's military and military-technical aspects,
there are doubts arising as regards the economic mechanism.
This is because attempts are being made to retain the old
methods of management and adapt them to the completely different
socioeconomic conditions now developing in Russia.
Under the former administrative edict system of management,
when all elements of the economic organism were not only
subordinate to the state but also belonged to it, the main
"mechanisms" of management were programs and plans (five-year,
annual, and so on). The plans' ratification was followed by the
implementation of the principle that "The plan is law and must
be fulfilled at all costs." At times it was wrecked, more often
than not it was fulfilled, but the "mechanism" functioned.
Now the situation has changed radically. Completely
different laws operate in the market economy. Even the Law on
Defense, adopted in 1992, enshrines that the state order, in
other words the plan issued from above, calls for mandatory
fulfillment only in wartime. Financial and economic incentives
should be used in peacetime. The budget and the taxation
system become the main instruments of management.
It is therefore anachronistic for the military doctrine, in
its section on military-technical and economic foundations, to
rely on "elaboration and implementation of long-term (up to
10-15 years) programs for armaments and military equipment on
the basis of state defense orders financed by the state."
Attention must mainly be given to a comprehensively
substantiated and balanced defense budget. It is the budget
that brings together the contradictory interests of various
departments involved in the solution of tasks concerning the
country's defense. Suffice it to recall the August-September
1993 outburst of passions surrounding the budget at the highest
level in Russia. This is why the budget needs independent expert
appraisal. It will help the practical implementation of the
doctrine's military-political provisions, and it is through the
budget that civilian control will be exercised over the activity
of the "power departments."
This is why representatives of various nonstate institutions
advocate a public discussion of the defense budget,
comprehensive control, and prompt accountability for its
fuilfillment.
The Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrine also contain
other weak points, which prompt criticism by the opposition.
Indeed, a series of provisions need clarification and amendment
to the extent that life and Russia's military-strategic
situation will change.
Challenges and Potentials
History's main lesson is that we won World War II but lost
the leadership race which is run according to economic rules.
Having lost its superpower status, Russia slid headlong to the
ranks of developing countries, and now even of regressing
countries. For the first time in the last 40 years, we are not
threatened by the permanent danger of global military conflict.
But the domestic instability, the chaos, the devastation
in the economy, and the mentality of losers pose an equal threat
to national security.
The fundamentally new political reality of which our
country's citizens are becoming painfully aware is that, for the
first time throughout its thousand-year history, Russia
has become a dependent country. It depends at least
on foreign creditors, the dollar-ruble rate of exchange, foreign
aid and investments, import deliveries, and raw material prices
on the world market. The Russian Federation's foreign policy is
no longer fully autonomous. International banks and agreements
are largely trying to dictate even our domestic policy. We are
virtually without allies in the world.
On the other hands, there are fewer external enemies, too.
Russia has joined the system of multipolar coordinates of
international security.
The situation is significantly worse within the area of the
former USSR. Interethnic conflicts have flared along the
borders. The former military-political and economic alliances
and institutions have been destroyed, new ones have either not
been created or are not functioning. The national pride of
Great Russians has been denigrated.
The choice that society and the state now have to make is
not
free, either. Today we have to choose from a very limited
number of options:
-- either Russia will remain a fully dependent
country,
-- or it will remain partially dependent,
-- or Russia will strive for full independence.
Having decided this crucial issue for ourselves, we will be
able to choose the sole scenario for the further development of
events.
It appears that only the second option is the most
realistic. It presupposes development based mainly on reliance
on our own strength, but with a high degree of external aid.
But our future freedom in decisionmaking will be limited in
proportion with the degree of dependence.
To paraphrase W. Churchill's famous sentence, it can be said
about Russia that we no longer have any friends, we have only
partners. Whether we like it or not, this world is based
on respect for the strength of authority and the might of the
state. Unfortunately, we cannot expect the former respect
without having the former might. Consequently, the most
important task of Russia's leadership over the next few years is
to restructure the economy, modernize fixed production
assets, and reduce the energy- and materials-intensiveness of
production.
The economic, financial, political, and military might can
be
boosted only on this basis. Only a program for steady economic
growth over the next 10-15 years can ensure significant progress
in the Russian economy's successful reform.
Democracy is fragile. All countries that have traversed the
long path of nurturing genuine democracy know that a young
democracy, unless it is legally, economically, and
sociopolitically protected, is as a rule doomed to degenerate.
This is the mortal danger at present.
All this is aggravated by the fact that the new structure of
life we are building in Russia is still far away from genuine
diversity. The social base of reforms remains narrow. The
shaping of a genuine middle class -- the foundation of future
stabilization -- took the wrong path from the very beginning.
The restoration of our domestic viability in the sphere of
productivity, investments, technology, education, and
energy is the most important task for ensuring both
domestic and external security, stability, and independence.
This is the basis on which the new nationwide
ideology should be formulated.
The government, local administrations, and Federal Assembly
deputies must realize: We are living in a changed and changing
world. The independent states' economies can no longer remain
strictly national. Differences between domestic and foreign
policy are fading. In our relations with CIS states it is
important to convincingly demonstrate the role of
destructive economic nationalism and cooperate with
them in the quest for peaceful ways to resolve ethnic crises
threatening stability in Russia, Europe, and the world.
It is also necessary to be aware that, having failed to
organize our own efficient production of competitive goods, we
are forced to import them from abroad thus creating additional
jobs over there rather than at home and dooming our own workers
to unemployment and poverty. The opposite also applies. This
is why the majority of social problems and crises in 1994 will
be associated with the economy and with domestic and foreign
policy. The realization of this is already halfway to solution,
and the adoption of correct decisions is halfway to success.
The other half will be determined by Russia's citizens -- their
mood, new incentives for labor, discipline, and
entrepreneurship, respect for the law, and faith in reform.
Hundreds of correct laws may be promulgated, the world's best
constitution may be adopted, but we will not extricate ourselves
from the system's crisis unless man feels the need to live and
work better.
The central problem in 1994 is to restore the prestige
of state power and create an effective mechanism for the laws'
operation and for monitoring the fulfillment of adopted
decisions.
National security begins with reliable protection of
Russia's
citizens against any attacks and infringements. It is necessary
to radically review the attitude toward this question, because
the problem of human rights stands right behind it.
Why should the assassination of one U.S. citizen in any country
immediately result in inevitable and effective sanctions, while
the assassination of Russian officers in Georgia and Tajikistan
goes unpunished? The state's might was not created in order to
remain inactive. The experience of the latest mass operations
to impose elementary order in the capital and the country shows
that the population will understand and support any actions by
the authorities to put an end to crime. This does not in any
way contradict the norms of democracy.
Moreover, it ought to be borne in mind that the authority of
the Russian Federation's government, Federal Assembly, and
president is largely determined by the quality of our
ideas, values, and leadership and the competitiveness of our
goods in the world market, rather than by superior military
might.
We will have to solve the budget deficit problems, curb
inflation, strengthen the regime of savings, and increase
capital investments. We also need a taxation system and a
legislative system capable of boosting production rather than
hindering it. The lost heights in the spheres of health care,
education, vocational training, and social security must be
regained step by step.
Following the disintegration of the former economic ties,
there has been a sharp deterioration of the condition of the
Russian infrastructure as a whole, and targeted investments will
be required there.
The following problems will be inevitably exacerbated in
1994:
-- inflation will evolve into galloping
hyperinflation;
-- the rising prices of energy sources will produce a
"domino effect" -- a race in prices of foodstuffs, commodities,
and services;
-- there will be a further slump in production and a
series of sectors will come to a halt on a nationwide scale;
--there is a threat of social explosion in the further
growth of the strike movement, whose participants will
increasingly often, and in parallel with economic demands, make
strictly political demands: the government's resignation, the
president's impeachment;
-- society's corruption will reach an
unprecedented scale;
-- the rise in crime will take mainly the path of growing
numbers of economic crimes and gangster-like
formations;
-- demographic regression: higher mortality rate,
reduced life expectancy, declining birth rate; pensioners and
declasse elements will die off on a massive scale;
-- unless effective changes are introduced in tax
legislation, the gap between the richest and the poorest strata
of the population will widen and will exceed all world
indicators;
-- we can expect a significant increase in the number
of Russian-speaking refugees from nearby foreign countries to
Russia which will significantly complicate the social
atmosphere in many regions. The government will have to firmly
apply economic sanctions against neighboring states where the
rights of the Russian-speaking population are violated;
-- new seats of interethnic conflicts will possibly
emerge;
-- 1994 will see a higher proportion of private trade,
free enterprise, and the private sector of production in
general. But the banking system will have to be made more
flexible and efficient with a view to encouraging the
development of production, rather than redistribution;
-- potential economic progress in Russia in 1994 will depend
largely on the restoration, at a qualitatively new level, of
regional and international ties, partnership, and cooperation;
-- as national currencies are introduced in a series of CIS
countries and the single ruble zone is being destroyed, it
is forecast that they will be swiftly devalued against both the
ruble and the dollar. Russia could be swamped by the flood of
Russian bank notes being sent back. This could be worse
than the size of any emission in terms of its inflationary
consequences. There will be a need for emergency monetary
reform and the introduction of a new ruble backed by the
International Russian Bank;
-- fresh attempts may be made to secede from the
Federation and the separatism of its components may be stepped
up;
-- Russia today has been bled almost dry and it cannot
continue to act as a selfless donor for nearby foreign
countries solely on the strength of the inertia of the
"proletarian internationalism" ideology. It can be forecast
that there will be a tenfold increase of the number of
attempts to illegally export commodities and raw materials from
the Russian Federation;
-- in 1994 the government will inevitably face the problem
of
building hundreds of border checkpoints along Russia's new
state border with all former Union republics, including
Cossack detachments and settlements and a firm rejection of
border "transparency." Full-scale consulates and embassies will
have to be open and a large number of bilateral treaties and
decisions will have to be adopted;
-- in contrast with the majority of government organizations
and institutions, we are forced to forecast something which has
been disregarded hitherto: Russia is approaching an
ecological disaster;
It is necessary to promptly introduce in Russia tough
standards of environmental quality and sanctions for
their violation, even including criminal liability;
-- Russia's talents have always been and still remain
one of its categories of national wealth. The so-called
brain drain abroad has reached unprecendented levels at present.
The national science, culture, art, and literature have been
shunted to the preiphery of state interests. It can be said --
not just about oil and gas fields but also about the Russian
talents -- that, by silently backing this antinational policy,
we are "selling off" our grandchildren's heritage and depriving
them of prospects for their intellectual and spiritual
development;
-- Russia's successes in the exploration of space
have always been and still remain a matter of national pride.
It is necessaty to adopt a targeted program for the
long-term preservation of science-intensive production units and
space reasearch. To encourage private and foreign capital
investments in space research and to create new jobs. If we
miss the opportunity to adopt radical decisions about the future
of science and space research, their degradation will
become irreversible and this, in its turn, will slow down
the growth of our country's economy and the development of its
scientific, engineering, and industrial base.
Thus we can imagine what Russia's future can be
like. We want to and can ensure that our great country is
dominated by Peace, Spirituality, Democracy, Love for the
Fatherland and our neighbor, in accordance with the genuine
laws of the development of civilization.
In order to ensure that the proposed strategy becomes
reality
and part of all citizens' world outlook and is given a chance to
succeed, it must be constructively discussed.
Of course, its realization will demand FAITH in our
future, TREMENDOUS COURAGE, and mainly PATIENT AND SELFLESS WORK
and INSPIRATION. All these qualities are inherent in the
Russian people.
Let us then make our Dream a Reality! Russia is a great
country, with a great history, a harsh present, but also a great
future. We believe that the coming 21st century will be
Russia's century.