Why is it not happening? I have no doubt that here too everything depends on the politics. The current stagnation of the Russian economy, which has a growth rate close to zero, results from the fact that for many years there has been no fundamental change in ideas of how it should develop. Also, the ‘economic team’, the main theoreticians and those who implement their ideas, is largely unchanged. Monetarist thinking dominates. There is a stubborn reluctance to regulate the economy, whether by stimulating demand, effective use of accumulated reserves or infrastructure projects. The economy remains straitjacketed by hardline monetarism.
Recently, appeals have more frequently been addressed to the head of state to change macroeconomic policy, but I believe that genuine competition in economic thinking will only be possible within a different political framework. We need political parties capable of putting forward alternative economic programmes, and a periodical handover of political power to make possible necessary changes of policy. In the absence of those changes, appeals to ‘the man at the top’ will do little good.
A crucial role in building a strong modern state in Russia can only be played by the judiciary. Without impartial courts, without justice, the rule of law is impossible. This goal, first called for in the years of Perestroika, is very far from having been achieved. Worse, in recent years there has been serious maladministration in this area. Respect for the legal system has been undermined and it will be no easy matter to restore it.
For Russia, with its vast territory and unique position in the world, the issue of security, its own and that of the world, is always a concern. It is an issue that, in the twenty-first century, can only be addressed through joint political efforts. The last few decades have confirmed how right were Olof Palme, John F. Kennedy and other leaders who were ahead of their time. ‘International security must rest on a commitment to joint survival rather than a threat of mutual destruction’, Palme advised.[2] Kennedy called for ‘not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women’.[3] ‘Only together can we put an end to the era of wars. Our common goal must be cooperation, joint creativity, joint development’, I said in my speech to the United Nations in 1988.
At the Twenty-Seventh Congress of the CPSU in 1986, we put forward the principle of restricting military capacity to a ‘reasonable sufficiency’ for defence on the grounds that ‘the nature of modern armaments gives no scope for any state to hope to defend itself solely by means of military technology’. That remains true today. States should resolve defence issues primarily through political means, on the basis of the principle of sufficient defensive force and not inflating military budgets.
I am certain that Russia is capable of ensuring her security in this way. It is also incumbent upon her to make a significant contribution to establishing a secure world order. Today, Russia has a major, inalienable and constructive role to play in global politics. It is very important that the international community understands that she has must be involved in resolving major global problems and that her contribution is properly recognized and appreciated.
Russia inherited from those who destroyed the Union a difficult set of problems in respect of relations with her immediate neighbours, who are bound to her by special historical ties. Some have joked that the motive behind establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States was primarily to spite Gorbachev. It is far from easy to build relationships on the imperative of unconditional recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the former Soviet states, while at the same time recognizing the need for close ‘cooperation’ (if some jibe at the word ‘integration’).
What matters is not the words, but the fact that a purely selfish approach to relations between states that have for centuries been part of a united, if diverse, country, simply will not work. This history cannot simply be deleted, and that is why establishing close cooperation between Russia and her immediate neighbours is essential and inescapable. It must, however, proceed on the clear understanding that there will be no attempt at domination, and that in dealing with problems large and small mutual interests will be fully taken into account.
We live in a time of great change. The twenty-first century got off to a difficult start, full of surprises, and humanity finds itself facing urgent problems. On the eve of the new century, I said:
The twenty-first century will either be a century of disastrous intensification of a deadly crisis, or the century in which mankind becomes morally more pure and spiritually healthier. I am convinced that we are all called upon to do our part to ensure the triumph of humanity and justice, to make the twenty-first century an age of renaissance, the century of mankind.
For our country, Russia, the twenty-first century may also be decisive. The present generation of Russian citizens, politicians and leaders may finally put our country on the road to stable democratic development. A renewed Russia may become a key participant in renewing the world. She has much to offer: natural and intellectual resources; the lessons from the past which we are, in spite of everything, learning; and an ardent desire to pave the way for a future of peace and justice for new generations.
Reflections of an Optimist
As soon as people start asking you for wisdom, you think, ‘Looks like I’m on my last legs.’
My very first memory is of famine. In 1933 I was just over 2 years old, and I remember my grandfather, Andrey, catching frogs in our small creek and boiling them in a pot. Their little white bellies turned upwards when they were being boiled, but I don’t remember eating them. Much later, on a boat trip on the Seine and to the accompaniment of songs about Paris, Raisa and I did eat frogs’ legs.
In 1935, I was seriously ill. It was just called ‘being poorly’. I couldn’t breathe. They put a candle by the cradle and cried but couldn’t think what else to do. We lived in the countryside; it was 1935. You get the picture. Then a woman came in and said: ‘You need to find some good honey and get him to drink a glass of that.’ I remember it perfectly: the room there, the window here, and a little blue teapot they put on the window-sill, very, very dark blue, with the honey. I took it, drank it and the lid fell off. I can still hear the clatter it made, right now.
I get spasms in the night in August, ever since I worked on the combine harvester as a boy. If I close my eyes now, I can see the wheat in front of me, oceans of it. Especially in June when it grows, the ears form and seed and the quail get to work on them.
Both my grandad Andrey and my other grandad, Panteley, were poor peasants. Soviet power gave them land and 10 years later they were classed as middle-income peasants. Grandad Panteley liked to say: ‘Soviet power was the saving of us. It gave us land. The rest we did ourselves.’
I haven’t been back to Privolnoye for five years now, and the other day decided I must go back again, in September or October. Those are the loveliest months: the harvest has been brought in and all you hear is the roar of tractors in the distance tilling the soil ready for winter, the birds are migrating, and that’s how life goes on, one thing following the other.
A person with no sense of belonging somewhere will never amount to anything.
I don’t like people who don’t care how they relax or what company they keep. I am a different kind of person.
2
Sadako Ogata, ‘Assuring the Security of People: The Humanitarian Challenge of the 21st Century’, UNHCR, 14 June 1995; http://www.unhcr.org/3ae68fa9c.html. Accessed 10 August 2015.
3
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Commencement Address at the American University, 10 June 1963 (transcript); http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BWC7I4C9QUmLG9J6I8oy8w.aspx. Accessed 16 July 2015.