At the bottom was the mass of society—the disprivileged and dispossessed. About half of this underclass consisted of the ‘working poor’, those whose disposable income plunged by two-thirds in the 1990s and, for most of them, was unpaid and in arrears. The working poor included most civil servants and state employees (for example, teachers and doctors) as well as those trapped in unprofitable or mismanaged enterprises. It helped little when the employers offered to ‘pay’ the wages in kind, such as gas pistols, coffins, and brassieres; teachers in Altai were first offered toilet paper, then funeral accessories, and finally vodka to settle their wage arrears. The other half of this underclass found itself below the poverty line (that is, had an income beneath the subsistence minimum). They included the unemployed (a category unknown in Soviet times, but—by conservative calculations—reaching 14 per cent of the workforce in 1999), the elderly (whose pensions were devalued by hyperinflation), single-parent families, and an array of social outcasts—the homeless, waifs, the disabled, and refugees from the Caucasus and other areas of conflict. Although estimates vary, in 1999 the CIA estimated that 40 per cent of the Russian population—over fifty million people—were below the poverty line (compared to 12 per cent in the United States). Although official figures can overstate the scale of the problem (since they do not take into account tax evasion, black-market earnings, and the subsistence gardening that augmented the declared incomes), the level of poverty was none the less extraordinary, whether measured by Soviet or Western standards.
One revealing index of immiseration was demographic decline: from 148.6 million 1993 to 146.3 million in 2001. This population decrease was partly due to a low birth rate (among the lowest in the world), but chiefly to a sharp increase in mortality. One revealing indicator was the drop in life expectancy, which peaked at 65 for men and 75 for women in 1985 but had dropped to 59 for men and 72 for women in 2000. While partly due to a high rate of infant mortality (two to three times that of Western countries), higher death rates became pandemic for the working-age population. Particularly revealing was the prospect for a 16-year-old male living to the age of 80: the rate in the United States was 88 per cent, but a mere 58 per cent in Russia—only slightly higher than a century earlier (56 per cent in 1895). Given these dismal patterns, contemporary studies by the United Nations and the Russian Academy of Sciences project that Russia’s initial population of 148.6 million (1993) will shrink to 130 million by 2015 and even drop to 100 million by 2050, perhaps sinking as low as 70 or 80 million. Such a cataclysmic decrease means an immense contraction in labour inputs and, simultaneously, a dangerous imbalance in the proportion of the workforce to pensioners (dropping officially from 2 : 1 in 1991 to 1.4 : 1 in 1999).
Critics attribute this demographic implosion to the destitution engendered by transition. Both nuptiality and fertility fell sharply: fewer married and still fewer bore children, with 70 per cent of pregnancies terminated through abortion. Still more important was the rise in mortality, especially in the middle range of the labour force. That was partly due to a deterioration in diet, with a significant reduction in meat consumption (33 per cent) and dairy products (over 40 per cent). Even with a compensatory increase in carbohydrate consumption, Russian daily caloric intake in the 1990s was only 62 per cent of the norm recommended by the World Health Organization. Bad living habits (astronomic rates of smoking and massive consumption of cheap alcohol) also took a toll; the explosion of prostitution (with 4,000 brothels in Moscow alone) raised sexually transmitted diseases to epidemic proportions (the syphilis rate, for example, increased seventyfold in the 1990s); and the vast increase in drug addiction spawned new scourges like Aids. Russia reported 135,000 officially registered HIV cases, but the real rate was probably five times greater; in specific cases, the increase was of horrifying magnitude—for example, the number of HIV-infected in Tver jumped from 8 in 1997 to 2,342 four years later. Even diseases once thought to be eradicated have roared back in full force; in particular, deadly strains of tuberculosis—widespread in the large prison population—have produced a mortality rate thirty times that of the United States.
Crime also increased sharply. The homicide rate, for example, rose to thirty times that of a gun-free United Kingdom and even three times that of the gun-rich America. The exponential increase in crimes of person and property overwhelmed the law-enforcement, judicial, and penal systems. In 1997, for example, the 28,677 employees in the procuracy (the office for legal prosecution) issued 427,000 arrest warrants and sought to process 1.2 million court cases; St Petersburg courts in 1996 were scheduling the docket for the year 2000. State prisons and labour camps held over a million citizens (a per capita incarceration rate sixteen times that of Western Europe and comparable only to the United States), but could not afford to house or feed them adequately. Particularly ominous was the intense growth of organized crime; by the late 1990s, Russia reportedly had 8,000 gangs with tens of thousands of mobsters. Apart from sensational contract murders (which claimed the lives of prominent politicians, journalists, bankers, and businessmen), organized crime invaded the new economy. In one city, 80 per cent of the businesses admitted paying the mafia for ‘protection’ (normally half of their profits); the Interior Ministry estimated that organized crime held one-third of the capital and the bulk of stock shares in the country. The deputy prime minister, Boris Nemtsov, did not exaggerate when decrying the pervasive influence of ‘gangster capitalism’.
‘Multi-polarity’ and the ‘Near Abroad’
The post-Soviet honeymoon in relations with the West, especially the United States, did not last beyond the mid-1990s. In addition to minor irritants (for example, recurring accusations of intelligence activities), the principal issues were three: NATO’s decision to incorporate former Eastern bloc countries and even former Soviet republics, Western military intervention in Yugoslavia, and American plans to construct a national missile defence (NMD) system.
The spectre of NATO expansion, under discussion during Yeltsin’s first term, now became a reality. Whereas Yeltsin’s first foreign minister, the complaisant ‘Atlantist’ Andrei Kozyrev, had acquiesced to such plans (in hopes of maintaining good relations), his departure in January 1996 signalled a new era of hardening resistance and truculence on the part of the Kremlin. The latter argued that the end of the Cold War made military alliances like NATO superfluous, and that security and stability in Europe required a new, comprehensive structure which included Russia itself. From Moscow’s perspective, NATO proposals to incorporate the former Eastern bloc countries—especially the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were tantamount to deploying NATO forces on Russian borders. The West, under American leadership, ignored Russia’s objections: in July 1997 NATO formally resolved to admit three former Eastern bloc countries (Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary) and to consider the inclusion of others in 2002. Powerless to stop the process, Russian rhetoric—official and public—became increasingly vitriolic.
Events in Yugoslavia reinforced anti-NATO sentiments. As Yugoslavia disintegrated and the Serbian government under Slobodan Milošević fought to preserve the country’s integrity, Kosovo—a Yugoslav province with a secessionist Albanian majority—became the focus of attention. Contending that the Serb government was preparing to perpetrate atrocities (with a new wave of ‘ethnic cleansing’), in March 1999 NATO—under American leadership—launched a massive air assault. Significantly, it did so without authorization from the United Nations (where any such request in the Security Council was certain to meet with a Russian veto) or, in the American case, even from the US Congress (which, constitutionally, has the power to declare war). The military intervention outraged the Russian government and public, partly because of the sentimental ties to the Serbs (as fellow Slavs and as Orthodox coreligionists), partly because of the flagrant disregard for Russian interests and the unilateral decision to intervene militarily. Both official and unofficial Russia castigated the NATO operation as counter-productive, precipitating the
ethnic conflict it sought to prevent. From Moscow’s perspective, at least, Kosovo became an object lesson in Washington’s arrogant belief in its unilateral right to intercede wherever and whenever it chose.
The final cause of growing tension was Washington’s decision to revive the ‘Star Wars’ project of the 1980s—the construction of a missile defence system. Warning that ‘rogue states’ like North Korea and Iran were developing nuclear weapons and ballistic delivery systems, the United States stepped up its research and development on a national missile defence (NMD) to repulse such limited attacks. Despite the rhetoric about Iran and North Korea, the NMD not only violated the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (which allowed each side to construct a missile defence system around a single site—a missile complex in the American case, Moscow in the Russian case) but also created the spectre that subsequent development could neutralize Chinese and ultimately Russian deterrence. Despite test failures and questions about technical feasibility, and despite the much-acclaimed personal ties between Yeltsin and President Bill Clinton, Washington continued to work on the project—to the dismay of Russia and even some American allies in Europe, who feared a unilateral dismantling of the nuclear arms structure constructed over the previous three decades. Although the Clinton administration deferred a final decision on development and deployment (because of international criticism and early test failures), the project remained alive and elicited enthusiastic support from conservative quarters, notably the then presidential candidate, George W. Bush.
Marginalized in the West, Russia increasingly turned its attention to the former Soviet republics—the ‘near abroad’ (the very term implying a special relationship). Although Russia played a leading role in creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1991 and adopting the collective security treaty of 1992, the Yeltsin government took little notice of the former ‘fraternal republics’ during his first term in office. That changed dramatically in the mid-1990s. Apart from disenchantment with the West, Russia now recognized the importance of economic ties with the CIS: these countries were once integral elements of a single system and offered markets where Russian products were still competitive. Moscow also claimed a strong interest in the fate of ethnic Russians, twenty-five million of whom found themselves outside the Russian Federation and appealed for protection. Ethnicity also raised delicate border issues, as in the Crimea, which Khrushchev had ‘given’ to Ukraine in 1954 but which had a Russian majority that identified with Moscow, not Kiev. Finally, Islamic fundamentalism also posed a growing threat not only to the newly independent states of Central Asia, but also to the Caucasus (above all, Chechnya) and potentially to other Muslim republics in the Russian Federation. Moscow had some incentive to exaggerate the threat of Islamic radicalism in order to refurbish its leadership and influence in the newly independent states of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Russia also chose to play the ‘Chinese card’. The time was opportune: Beijing shared its concern about Islamic radicalism (especially among the Muslim Uigur population of Xinjiang province) and opposed ‘unipolarity’ (a code word for American hegemony). The improvement in Sino-Russian relations commenced under Gorbachev and accelerated sharply in the second half of the decade. The turning point came in April 1996, when Russia, China, and three Central Asian states (Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) met in Shanghai and agreed to establish the ‘Shanghai Five’, which was to promote economic cooperation, coordinate foreign policy, and make reciprocal military reductions and the like. Above all, Beijing and Moscow were determined to resist American pretensions to global dominance, to repulse Western meddling in their internal affairs (whether human rights or secession-prone regions like Xinjiang and Chechnya), and to combat Islamic radicalism. This collaboration proved all the more attractive as American engagement (and especially a willingness to become embroiled in far-off Central Asia) waned, creating a vacuum and need for joint action by the two regional powers—China and Russia.
From the Abyss to Renewal
On the eve of the new millennium Russia found itself mired in profound crisis. The most obvious problem was the economic collapse that ensued after it defaulted on loan repayment in August 1998, precipitating a downward, vertiginous economic spiral that erased the modest recovery begun in 1997. The economic turmoil had a devastating impact on society, from élites to disprivileged, and seemed to presage a whole new phase of debilitating economic regression. At home and abroad, Yeltsin’s policies appeared a total fiasco; even though much was beyond his control (such as the Asian financial crisis that turned global, with a devastating impact on Russia), Yeltsin bore the blame. He no longer enjoyed, or appeared to curry, the patronage of the West, which had exploited—in the view of many Russians, even facilitated—Russia’s demise as a great power. Amidst all these woes, the ‘strong presidency’ devolved into a weak executive; the president himself was not only politically but even physically debilitated (barely able to appear in public without the physical assistance of aides). Yeltsin also was losing his long-fought battle with the Duma, which imposed its own prime minister in September 1998, became increasingly aggressive, and even laid plans to impeach the unpopular president. Constitutionally deprived of the right to re-election, his approval rating reduced to single digits, ‘Tsar Boris’ was already a ‘lame duck’. By August 1999 he, and his regime, appeared ready to expire; it was precisely at that point that he named Vladimir Putin prime minister—the man who would soon become his anointed successor.
15. Rebuilding Russia
GREGORY L. FREEZE
THE first years of the twenty-first century witnessed a spectacular recovery in Russia—the rebuilding of central state power, a fast-paced economic boom, and reassertion of that country’s status as a major global power. Leading this renaissance was Vladimir Putin, former KGB officer and Boris Yeltsin’s anointed successor, a man determined to restore Russia to its ‘rightful’ place in the world. He benefited from the fortuitous surge in the global economy (which generated an insatiable demand for Russia’s abundant energy resources); that windfall enabled Putin not only to claim responsibility for reversing a decade of catastrophic economic decline but also to re-establish a centralized state. His two-term presidency (2000–8) thus brought both prosperity and power: high rates of economic growth, reassertion of Moscow’s control over subordinate regions, creation of more effective instruments of rule, and increased support for the military. In 2008 Putin, who opposed changing the constitutional two-term limit, ceded the presidency to his protégé Dmitrii Medvedev, but retained real power as prime minister. The Medvedev presidency, however, was soon confronted with a steep global recession that had devastating consequences for the Russian economy, which had remained so heavily dependent on energy exports. Globalization under Putin had returned Russia to the ranks of world powers, economic and political; the global financial crisis under Medvedev threatened to erase all the gains of the Putin era.
The End of the Yeltsin Era
Boris Yeltsin’s final months in office could hardly have been more tumultuous. After a band of Chechen commandos invaded the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan and inflicted heavy casualties, Yeltsin summarily dismissed the current prime minister Sergei Stepashin and appointed a virtual unknown, Vladimir Putin—the fifth prime minister in two years. Putin came from the former KGB, where he had served as an intelligence officer in East Germany, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, before resigning amidst the abortive coup of August 1991 (‘As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on’) and joining the anti-coup forces led by Leningrad mayor Anatolii Sobchak. Putin subsequently became a top aide to Sobchak, with the specific charge of attracting foreign investment. After Sobchak lost re-election as mayor in 1996, Putin moved to Moscow to serve as an assistant to Pavel Borodin, a Yeltsin aide responsible for managing Kremlin properties. Putin quickly climbed the Kremlin hierarchy, appointed first as deputy chief of staff for relations with the subordinate regions (March 19
97), next as director of the secret police, the FSB (July 1998), and finally as the head of the Security Council (March 1999). In August the Chechnya crisis and Stepashin’s dismissal catapulted Putin into the post of prime minister. Within a few weeks, after bombings (officially attributed to Chechen terrorists) in Moscow and other cities cost 310 lives, Putin persuaded Yeltsin to order federal forces to invade Chechnya and eradicate the source of the terrorism.
With Yeltsin’s second and final term due to expire in July 2000, the Kremlin came to view Putin as a viable successor. Why Putin was chosen has been the subject of much speculation. The athletic 48-year-old Putin was certainly a striking contrast to the doddering, besotted, 69-year-old Yeltsin. Putin was articulate and well educated; he first received a degree in law, later earned a ‘candidate’ degree (Ph.D.) in economics, and had strong ties to influential liberal economists. His résumé glistened with experience: the service in Germany, Petersburg, and Moscow provided valuable preparation in critical areas of foreign and domestic policy. Putin also came across as a man of the people, willing—whether as cool calculation or a flash of temper—to use shocking vulgarities to make his point and an impression. He also acted like a president even before he became one: he wielded unprecedented authority as prime minister, playing a far more important and independent role in policy-making than had any of his predecessors. As Yeltsin looked for a successor, Putin’s meteoric rise in popularity—from a Yeltsinesque 2 per cent approval rating in August 1999 to 50 per cent four months later—gave every reason to believe that Putin could prevail even in a hotly contested presidential election. Some of Yeltsin’s critics adduce an additional reason for choosing Putin: kompromat (compromising materials), including allegations that his government, not terrorists, perpetrated the bombings used to justify the invasion of Chechnya. This kompromat, they argue, guaranteed that as president Putin would not dare to turn against Yeltsin and the ‘Family’.
Russia A History Page 54