I want to say that for me, personally, hope for the future of Russia comes not from looking to those in power, not to what they think or come up with, but from everybody doing their own job with all the energy they possess. We have started belonging to ourselves, and for that, thank you so much, Mikhail Sergeyevich.
Georgiy Shakhnazarov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Repudiating the entire Soviet experience, pronouncing it negative from start to finish, we deprive ourselves of a very important part of our history. Can we really stigmatize this whole era as a time when everyone subscribed to the motto of ‘Steal back all that was stolen!’? Let us just remember how much was created! It is today that is the era of thievery, of plundering the fruits of a people’s labour. Until we come to terms with the Soviet past, until we recognize that those seventy years are as valuable for the future as all the rest of Russia’s millennial history, there will be no new ideas, no breakthrough to the future.
Drawing the discussion to a close, I said:
We know how difficult life is for everyone right now, for our country, for all our citizens. But that is all the more reason why, in this situation, we must have the courage to preserve our principles and independent thinking. I do not for a moment believe, as someone has said here, that the intelligentsia has died. I do not want to accept that opinion, although I fully share the pain at what is happening to us and to the intelligentsia. It seems to me that only demonstrates how much Russia needs such centres of independent thought as ours. It is splendid that you have come today to remember how the Foundation was established, and how it sent out impulses that caused other foundations to appear, with which we cooperate and discuss specific projects. It is essential to keep the shoots of civil society alive.
The Foundation will continue to focus primarily on what is happening in our own, native land, and to do all it can to bring the ongoing crisis to an end.
The elections fail to bring stability
The end of the presidential election did not bring even temporary political stabilization. Although the government lost no time in cynically reneging on their campaign promises, Russia’s financial system was in tatters. There was a rapidly increasing avalanche of defaults and arrears within the state budget, social inequalities deepened, the country continued its slide into deindustrialization, and still there was no sign of a coherent economic and industrial policy on the part of the state.
It was reported that enormous numbers of working people in many sectors of the economy and in many regions had not received their wages and salaries for six months or more. In October 1996, pension arrears reached 13.3 trillion roubles ($2.5 billion). A conference of Tatarstan judges issued a statement:
The government of the Russian Federation is not fulfilling the requirements of Article 124 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation that funding of the courts from the federal budget must ensure the feasibility of full and independent administration of justice in accordance with federal law. Minimum funding requirements of the court system for administering justice are not being met.
January 1997 saw the publication of a statement addressed to the president of Russia by prominent economists, academicians and Nobel Prize-winners. They saw the state’s withdrawal from its regulatory functions as being the primary cause of the decline, collapse, plundering and criminalization of the economy. This had produced ‘horrifying social consequences’, including a huge increase in the number of completely penurious people.
The inevitable consequences of the policies of the past six years were increasingly obvious. In an article published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Anatoly Kulikov wrote:
Criminal elements have become more organized and quickly moved from disparate groups of gangsters to intellectually and technologically well-supported criminal syndicates with robust security and large-scale ambitions. To demonstrate their power and for purposes of intimidation, extremely dangerous methods and resources have been used, including criminal terror. The primary cause of many negative phenomena is to be found in economic relationships. Criminal business methods are increasingly in evidence. There is a rapid increase in the number of business enterprises operating illegally or concealing substantial volumes of their operations from auditing and taxation procedures. ... In this environment the situation of ordinary Russians is worsening. The decline in industrial output, underfunding of the public sector, the lack of funds for welfare programmes and protection of the poor are giving rise to disengagement of the population at large from tasks needing to be resolved in the process of reforming property relations and Russia’s economic structure. There is growing disillusionment and disregard of moral standards and law-abiding behaviour. More and more new forces are being drawn into illegal activity.
On 6 March 1997, Yeltsin gave an address to the Federal Assembly titled ‘Order in the government means order in the country’. It was, of course, impossible for him not to be aware that the people were tired of chaos. It was essential, he said, to restore order, not dictatorial order but democratic order. In response to the president’s address, I warned, ‘Nothing is said in this speech about what matters most: analysis of the causes of the severe crisis in which our society finds itself.’ The impression given was that Yeltsin was again going to back not a change of policy, but increased pressure to force through a course of action that had already led Russia to an impasse. ‘If that is the case, if my suspicions and assessment prove correct, we can expect more shocks.’
Opinion polls detected a growing wave of protest, but the president and his ‘renewed team’ were disinclined to listen to what people thought, and saw the way forward as being a ‘more resolute’ pushing ahead with the old course. In June, I shared my concerns with the readers of Novaya Gazeta:
After the failure of Shock Therapy, Mk I, a new version of the same thing is to be imposed on Russia. Everything in Boris Yeltsin’s recent behaviour indicates that he is intending to remain as president for life, in disregard of the constitution, society and everything else.
Respected economists have voiced their criticism in unison, but the Kremlin line, personified by Chubais, brooks no deviation. Any who do not fall in with the plans of the Centre will be starved of resources. The upshot is that we can predict rising tension between the Centre and the periphery.
The policy of radical monetarism is being imposed on Russia by all available means. Those in the Kremlin are aware that pushing ahead will encounter universal protests, and that is why the government is so unceremoniously grasping at unconditional support from the media. Television is already almost completely under control, and now it is the turn of print publications. Komsomolskaya Pravda has already fallen and the battle is raging to take over Izvestiya. The subservient media stop at nothing to ingratiate themselves with their new owners. They even attacked the Russian Orthodox Church after the Patriarch of all Russia, Alexiy II, criticized the results of the reformers’ efforts, speaking out in defence of the dispossessed and those deprived of all help and support.
In this climate, the fight against corruption is no more than a pretence aimed at diverting public attention. It is perfectly obvious nothing will come of it, not least because the corruption is rooted in the regime itself.