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May
13
Petrostate
May 13, 2008
Bloomberg.com’s audio program On the Economy talks with Marshall Goldman about Gazprom, Putin, Medvedev, oil and gas, and the “Dutch disease.” Goldman’s new book Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia just came out on Oxford University Press. You can download the interview here.
Popularity: 1% [?]
May
13
Meet the New (Old) Ministers
May 13, 2008
(Top down, left to right: Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister; Viktor Zubkov, First Vice-Prime Minister; Igor Shubalov, First Vice-Prime Minister; Igor Sechin, Vice-Prime Minister; Sergei Sobyanin, Vice-Prime Minister; Sergei Ivanov, Vice-Prime Minister; Aleksei Kurdrin, Vice-Prime Minister; Aleksandr Zhukov, Vice-Prime Minister; Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister; Rashid Nuraliev, Minister of Internal Affairs; Aleksei Kudrin, MInister of Finance; Sergei Shoigy, Minister of Public Safety; Dmitri Kozak, Minister of Regional Development; Tatiana Golkova, Minister of Health and Social Development; Elvira Nabiullina, Minister of Economic Development; Anatolii Serdiukov, Minister of Defense; Igor Shchegolev, Minister of Communications; Andrei Fursenko, Minister of Education; Iurii Trutnev, Minister of Natural Resources; Aleksei Gordeev, Minister of Agriculture; Sergei Shmatko, Minister of Energy; Viktor Khistenko, Minister of Industry, Vitalii Mutko, Minister of Sport; Aleksandr Avdeev, Minister of Culture; Igor Levitin, Minister of Transportation; and Aleksandr Konovalov, Minister of Justice.)
Things to note are:
Putin basically brought his tail from the Kremlin into the White House. The top faces should be familiar to anyone paying attention. The number of Vice Prime Ministers was raised from five to seven. Shubalov’s promotion and Kurdin’s double role as Finance Minister and Vice-Premier is being viewed as a liberal bulwark to hawkish Sechin and Ivanov. Dmitri Babich notes that all seven men owe their careers to Putin and four of them (Ivanov, Sechin, Zubkov and Shuvalov) are his personal friends.
Two big figures in the “siloviki war” Vikor Cherkesov and Nikolai Patrushev have been removed from their respective positions as the head of the Federal Drug Control Service and the FSB. The former will now head the federal agency for buying military hardware. The latter will become the head of Medvedev’s Security Council.
The Moscow Times sees this shuffle as an overall blow to the siloviki. So does Yevgenia Albats, who told the Indepdenent’s Shaun Walker that “The appointments suggest that the warriors have lost and the traders have won.”
Despite the fact that the government looks stable, Jonas Bernstein evaluates the expectation that the Medvedev-Putin tandem will at some point collapse.
The New York Times’ C. J. Chivers predictably sees the appointments as yet another move to “retain a grip on power and the direction of policy in Russia.” Like the Moscow Times he makes much of the fact that Putin sat in the same seat as he did as President, while Medvedev sat in a seat “viewers have come to regard as one for subordinates.” Reuters is also making much of the chair. Lyndon over at Scraps of Moscow simply calls the chair thing “stability.”
Equally predictable, RFE/RL sees the cabinet with so many familiar faces as the “preservation of power.” Wasn’t that the point all along?
Not all are winners though. Sergei Ivanov, who was once a presidential hopeful was demoted from a First Vice Primer to a simple Vice Premier. Communications Minister Leonid Reiman and Justice Minister Vladimir Ustinov have to hit the pavement and find new jobs. I doubt the revolving door between the Russian government and Russian corporations will make job hunting difficult.
Medvedev has appointed former Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin to be his chief of staff. He also promoted Head Putin ideologist Vladislav Surkov to first deputy chief of staff and elevated another Putinite, Alexei Gromov, to be deputy chief of staff.
Few new faces were brought into the Putin’s government or Medvedev’s administration. For the most part things look like they did before. Economic liberals are balanced with security minded conservatives.
I don’t imagine any major conflicts, or at least no more than usual among the elite. The board of Kremlin Inc. is continuing with business as usual. Let the plundering resume!
Popularity: 1% [?]
May
13
“Natural-Resource Curse”?
May 13, 2008
Is oil a boon or a blessing? When it comes to Russia, more and more analysis are seeing it as the former. As Konstantin Sonin argues, the “natural-resource curse” is now a favorite among those who seek to explain Russia’s skewed trajectory toward democracy. For Sonin, the oil curse is now displacing other favorite explanations for Russia’s inability to extricate itself from the tar pit of backwardness. Sonin writes,
The arguments over why Russia repeatedly runs into roadblocks in its path toward democracy will continue as long as the country exists — which is to say eternally. The excuses used to explain these failures also seemed to be eternal: Russia’s subjugation under the Mongolian yoke; the immensity of Russia’s territory and its need for expansion; or the “unique Russian mentality” that is somehow not conducive to democracy. Even the country’s severe climate is cited as one reason for its backwardness.
Russia democratic derailment is so perplexing that some are turning to where Putin and Medvedev sit as an clue to the configuration of power. It’s as if Sovietologists’ practice of finding out who was in charge by where they stood on Lenin’s Mausoleum wasn’t inane enough. But that is the logical outcome of seeing the Russians as eternally backward. Since they aren’t like us, and because of genetics or history can’t be like us, then we will have to decipher their barbarous symbolic order to uncover their hidden secrets. Such is the thrill and the frustration of studying an “abnormal” country.
As Sonin notes, whether the “natural-resource curse” is actually a curse remains to be seen. Sure there isn’t much historical precedent of oil rich countries becoming flower gardens of democracy. Sure it seems that most oil rich countries are wallowing in the morass of lopsided economies, polarizing wealth, and dependency. But the problem for Sonin isn’t oil as such. It’s the power dynamic between rulers and people.
The “natural-resource curse,” which is the theory that high oil and gas profits weaken economic and political development in the long term, is not always a given. The true impact of the curse depends on a nation’s particular history and culture. In some countries, governmental institutions are so stable that even a sharp rise in prices for resource exports would not threaten their integrity. Even in a country without successful experience in democratic development, the efforts of the ruling elite, coupled with the proper political awareness on the part of the people, could prevent the country from sliding into a dictatorship.
This is a nice theory. But “political awareness on the part of the people” has shown to be quite malleable to the whims of leaders. Maybe Sonin has a better ear, but I don’t hear many Russians clamoring for a redistribution of all that oil wealth. In fact, the population appears have been lulled into political content by the dazzling allure of consumerism. The plenitude of new cars, clothes, stereos, cell phones, DVD players, and flat screen TVs if not actually consumed, at least present the potential of consumption. The trickle down of oil wealth to Russia’s middle classes is enough to produce a reinforcing objective and subjective sense of stability. Enough Russians see and feel a bright tomorrow, which acts as a gloss over whatever problems that exist. There is a unspoken pact between leaders and people. One that says, to quote Sonin, “the country’s leaders don’t have to bend over backwards to earn the right to stay in power, and the people aren’t overly concerned about how their government is structured, or who controls what.” With a deal like that, why would any Russian what to muck it up with something as unpredictable as democracy?
Popularity: 1% [?]
May
10
Geopolitical Imbalances
May 10, 2008
A state’s great power status resides in the flow of cheap oil, argues Michael Klare, author of the newly published Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. With oil prices hitting another high of $123 this week, and predictions of it hitting $200 over the next two years, the overall impact on American ability to project power, the dollar’s solvency, and its domestic economy may have devastating effects. Another result could be a profound geopolitical shift. In fact we are already seeing it. The rise of India and China, the reemergence of Russia, and a more independent EU are all coming at a time where American power is at best stagnant and at worse shrinking. As Klare notes, “By now, we are transferring such staggering sums yearly to foreign oil producers, who are using it to gobble up valuable American assets, that, whether we know it or not, we have essentially abandoned our claim to superpowerdom.”
Indeed, it is difficult to argue that American global power has increased in the last eight years. So much so, America’s decline has prompted some to reevaluate America’s “victory” in the Cold War. The way things are going the final assessment of the Cold War might not be who won, but who collapsed first.
As great powers fall, new ones arise. There is no doubt that Russia is one beneficiary of exploding oil prices. As its position as a energy exporter (Russia is the second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia) grows, its hegemony expands, especially over Europe, resulting in a shift in the balance of power. Klare writes:
As Russia has become an energy-exporting state, it has moved from the list of has-beens to the front rank of major players. When President Bush first occupied the White House, in February 2001, one of his highest priorities was to downgrade U.S. ties with Russia and annul the various arms-control agreements that had been forged between the two countries by his predecessors, agreements that explicitly conferred equal status on the USA and the USSR.
As an indication of how contemptuously the Bush team viewed Russia at that time, Condoleezza Rice, while still an adviser to the Bush presidential campaign, wrote, in the January/February 2000 issue of the influential Foreign Affairs, “U.S. policy… must recognize that American security is threatened less by Russia’s strength than by its weakness and incoherence.” Under such circumstances, she continued, there was no need to preserve obsolete relics of the dual superpower past like the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; rather, the focus of U.S. efforts should be on preventing the further erosion of Russian nuclear safeguards and the potential escape of nuclear materials.
In line with this outlook, President Bush believed that he could convert an impoverished and compliant Russia into a major source of oil and natural gas for the United States — with American energy companies running the show. This was the evident aim of the U.S.-Russian “energy dialogue” announced by Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May 2002. But if Bush thought Russia was prepared to turn into a northern version of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela prior to the arrival of Hugo Chávez, he was to be sorely disappointed. Putin never permitted American firms to acquire substantial energy assets in Russia. Instead, he presided over a major recentralization of state control when it came to the country’s most valuable oil and gas reserves, putting most of them in the hands of Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas behemoth.
Once in control of these assets, moreover, Putin has used his renascent energy power to exert influence over states that were once part of the former Soviet Union, as well as those in Western Europe that rely on Russian oil and gas for a substantial share of their energy needs. In the most extreme case, Moscow turned off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine on January 1, 2006, in the midst of an especially cold winter, in what was said to be a dispute over pricing but was widely viewed as punishment for Ukraine’s political drift westwards. (The gas was turned back on four days later when Ukraine agreed to pay a higher price and offered other concessions.) Gazprom has threatened similar action in disputes with Armenia, Belarus, and Georgia — in each case forcing those former Soviet SSRs to back down.
When it comes to the U.S.-Russian relationship, just how much the balance of power has shifted was evident at the NATO summit at Bucharest in early April. There, President Bush asked that Georgia and Ukraine both be approved for eventual membership in the alliance, only to find top U.S. allies (and Russian energy users) France and Germany blocking the measure out of concern for straining ties with Russia. “It was a remarkable rejection of American policy in an alliance normally dominated by Washington,” Steven Erlanger and Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reported, “and it sent a confusing signal to Russia, one that some countries considered close to appeasement of Moscow.”
For Russian officials, however, the restoration of their country’s great power status is not the product of deceit or bullying, but a natural consequence of being the world’s leading energy provider. No one is more aware of this than Dmitri Medvedev, the former Chairman of Gazprom and new Russian president. “The attitude toward Russia in the world is different now,” he declared on December 11, 2007. “We are not being lectured like schoolchildren; we are respected and we are deferred to. Russia has reclaimed its proper place in the world community. Russia has become a different country, stronger and more prosperous.”
The same, of course, can be said about the United States — in reverse. As a result of our addiction to increasingly costly imported oil, we have become a different country, weaker and less prosperous. Whether we know it or not, the energy Berlin Wall has already fallen and the United States is an ex-superpower-in-the-making.
Popularity: 2% [?]
May
9
Constitutional Monarchy
May 9, 2008
Here’s a surprise. The Russian Duma overwhelmingly approved Putin as Prime Minister. Okay, it’s not that surprising. The Communists did hold to their word to vote against him. Out of the possible 450 votes, Putin got 392, all 56 Communist reps voted against him. Two Duma members weren’t present to cast their ballots. But Zyuganov speech where he criticized much of Putin’s presidential tenure didn’t sway anyone else. If you want to read a thorough analysis of Putin becoming PM, then I advise that you turn to Lyndon’s analysis on Scraps of Moscow.
But how the diarchy, tandemocarcy, or whatever you want to call it, sees itself might lie in Medvedev’s coronation, ahem, I mean, inauguration. Russia Profile’s Andrei Zolotov articulates something that I felt while watching it: the ceremony’s Tsarist flavor. Zolotov writes:
The tsarist allusion was all too natural throughout the ceremony – and it correctly reflects the nature of the Russian regime, which combines the elements of democracy with a strong monarchist tradition. After all, it was in the throne hall of the royal Grand Kremlin Palace, which was reconstructed in the 1990s, that the inauguration was taking place, with the throne draped behind the backdrop in the colors of the Russian flag. Or maybe it was removed for the occasion – the glamorous television broadcast did not show it. But in any case, it stands empty, although carefully reconstructed after Soviet-era demolition – a telling sign of the often untold mourning of the monarchy lost.
The role of the Orthodox Church in the inauguration of the head of the secular state requires special attention. During President Boris Yeltsin’s inauguration in 1996, which took place in the Soviet –era Kremlin Palace of Congresses, Patriarch Alexy II of the Russian Orthodox Church was on the stage, along with the heads of the Constitutional Court and the chambers of parliament, and he gave a blessing to the president and made a short speech at the end of the ceremony.
Dmitry and Svetlana Medvedev with Patriarch Alexy II and other Russian Orthodox Church officials after the private prayer service in the Kremlin’s Annunciation Cathedral on Wednesday. On the left – Archpriest Vladimir Volgin, apparent pastor to the Medvedev family. As of Putin’s first inauguration in 2000, the authorities began to treat the separation of church and state more carefully. On Wednesday, just as in 2000 and 2004, the patriarch stood first among the guests in St. Andrew’s hall, but not on the podium where Valery Zorkin, the chairman of the Constitutional Court dressed in a mantel and hat, played the role of the high priest of the law. But immediately after the inauguration ceremony per se, he served a private prayer service for the new president in the Annunciation Cathedral – the ancient private chapel of the Russian tsars. Apart from some prominent bishops, according to a group photograph released by the Moscow Patriarchate, the ceremony was attended by a prominent Moscow Archrpriest Vladimir Volgin, thus confirming the rumors that he is the pastor to Medvedev family.
Just for a comparison, here’s a snippet of how Count von Moltkle described Alexander II’s coronation in 1855.
At nine o’clock the doors of the imperial rooms were opened; the flock of the chamberlains set itself in motion; the empress-mother appeared, supported by her two youngest sons. She wore a close crown entirely of diamonds, an ermine mantle of gold material, the train of which was borne by six chamberlains, and which was fastened by a magnificent diamond chain. The slight figure, the cameo profile, the majestic carriage of the illustrious woman, the joyful seriousness of her features, called forth the unconscious admiration of every one. On the previous evening she had assembled all her children and blessed them. She was followed by the hereditary grand duke, the grand dukes and grand duchesses, Prince Frederic William, Prince Frederic of the Netherlands, Alexander of Hesse, and the other royal princes, then their suites, and after us the ladies. The procession passed through the halls of Alexander, Vladimir, and George, which together make a length of about five hundred feet. On the left paraded the Palace Grenadiers, the Chevalier Guards, the Cuirassiers, with shining breastplates, deputations from the other cavalry and infantry regiments—all with standards and flags and bright arms. To the right were all the officers.
. . .
Then the regalia were brought in by the highest military and civil officials—the imperial banner with the double-eagle of Byzantium, the great seal (a great steel plate without any other ornament), the sword of the Empire, the coronation robes of both Their Majesties, the imperial globe with a cross belt of great diamonds (Severin served it upon a drap-d’or cushion), the scepter with the well-known great Lazaref diamond—which stands second in size only to the Kohinoor (mountain of light), the Prince Regent, and perhaps one or two others—and, finally, the two crowns. The large one of the emperor is formed by a bow from front to back of diamonds, and trimmed with a row of very great pearls. The bow has a cross in which is a ruby of inestimable value. This stone is an inch long, about half an inch wide, and a quarter of an inch thick, but irregular and not cut. From the band around the head rise on either side two covers which fasten on to the bow, so that one sees nothing of the velvet cap that is inside. The band and the sides are entirely of diamonds, of considerable size and the finest water. It glitters with every color in the sun. The empress’s crown is similar, but smaller, and it did not seem easy to keep it on the top of her head, where it was fastened with diamond hairpins.
Now the cross was carried from the church toward the approaching emperor, and the Metropolitan of Moscow sprinkled his path with holy water. Their Majesties bowed three times toward the gate of the sanctuary, and then took their seats upon the throne; the high church dignitaries filled the space from the throne to the middle door of the ikonostase; and the choir struck up the psalm “Misericordiam.” I have already written you of the affecting beauty of the Russian church songs, executed by male voices without instrumental accompaniment. They are very old, and have been collected from the East, and differ widely from the poor hymns of the Protestant and from the opera-music of the Catholic Church. The singers are extraordinarily trained, and one hears almost incredible bass voices, which echo with imposing strength from the firm walls and domes of this limited space.
Since Peter I incorporated the patriarchal power, the metropolitan is the highest priest of this great empire, at this time the handsome but already decrepit old Philaretes, who crowned the Emperor Nicholas I. It is of great importance for a high priest to have a strong bass voice: the voice of the old metropolitan could scarcely be heard, when he requested the emperor to say the creed. As soon as this was done, the emperor was invested with the coronation mantle, consisting of the richest gold brocade lined with ermine. He bowed his head, and remained in this position while the metropolitan laid his hands on his head and gave two long benedictions. Then the emperor called for the crown, placed it himself upon his head, took the scepter in his right hand, the imperial globe in his left, and seated himself upon the throne. Thereupon the empress stood before him and knelt down. The emperor takes the crown from his head and touches the empress with it, after which she is also invested with mantle and crown, and seats herself on the throne to the left of her spouse.
It was beautiful to see the intense interest with which the stately old empress-mother followed all the ceremonies. Meanwhile her youngest son was always at her side, supported her, wrapped the ermine about her that she might not take cold. The wife of a North American diplomat fainted near me, the Grand Duchess Helene fell into the grand duke’s arms, but the old mother of the emperor remained steady. Then she arose and firmly ascended the steps of the throne, the glittering crown upon her head and her gold brocaded mantle trailing behind her. Before all the world she embraced her first-born son and blessed him. The emperor kissed her hands. Then followed the grand dukes and princes with low bows; the emperor embraced them. Meanwhile the Domine salve fac imperatorem was sung, all the church-bells were ringing, and hundreds of cannon made the windows tremble. All present bowed low three times. Then the monarch divests himself of the imperial robes, descends from the throne, and kneels to pray. After he has risen, all present kneel or bow their heads to pray for the welfare of the new emperor.
No mortal man has such power in his hands as the absolute monarch of the tenth part of all the inhabitants of the earth, whose scepter reaches over four quarters of the globe, and who rules over Christians and Jews, Mussulmans, and pagans. Why should one not pray to God heartily to enlighten the man whose will is law to sixty millions of people, whose word commands from the Chinese wall to the Weichsel, from the Arctic Ocean to Mount Ararat; for whose call a half-million soldiers wait, and who has just given peace to Europe? May he be successful in the innumerable conquests still to be made in the interior of this great empire, and may he always remain a strong supporter of lawful regulations!
Von Moltke’s hope that Alexander “remain a strong supporter of lawful regulations” has quite a familiar echo in the present.
Popularity: 1% [?]
May
9
Red Army WWII Vet + Zionism = Marxist Likudnik
May 9, 2008
Meet Don Kozlents. This octogenarian medal of valor holder is one of the millions of Red Army veterans of WWII. Like so many others, most of his family perished at the hands of the Nazis. He fought in the Battle of Kursk, where he was wounded when he crawled out of a pit to reconnect the wires of his primitive radio. A shell hit him, shattering his arms. Ironically, the very faulty radio equipment that brought him out of his hole was the very thing that protected him from the shell’s fatal blow. To this day shrapnel from the shell float in his body. As Kozlents spreads his metals out on his kitchen table in his apartment in Rishon Letrzion in Israel, he tells Haaretz’s Lily Galili, “I did good work as a soldier. I was there for Russia, but as a Jew for Russia.” After the war he continued this good work by developing drug patents for the Soviet state.
Indeed, Kozlents was a “Jew for Russia.” Like so many WWII vets, Kozlents’ identity is irreducible. Like his father, also a Red Army officer, Kozlents was and remains a Zionist. By the 1970s, he joined thousands of refusniks, Soviet Jews who wanted to immigrate to Israel but were denied. Success finally came when his son Mark managed to immigrate. The elder Kozlents followed shortly after thanks to a Canadian “kibbutznik” and the personal intervention Margaret Thatcher.
Also like his father, Kozlents was a die hard communist. And remains so to this day. “I worked in the plant from morning until evening,” he says as he shows Galili a certificate signed by Stalin thanking him for his pharmaceutical work. “We sent the drugs to Africa and Asia. I worked to achieve a better world. I wanted to change the world.” But even Kozlents’ Marxism is difficult to categorize. As Galili writes,
He remains a fervent communist, but over the years he has also become a loyal “Bibi-ist.” According to him, Benjamin Netanyahu is following in the path of Karl Marx, more or less, and if we fail to understand this, that’s our problem. Kozlents says he is a real Marxist, just as he is a real communist, a real Jew and a real Likudnik - he sees no contradiction among these elements.
A Marxist Likudnik? I shutter to think. But who am I to say who is and who isn’t a real Marxist. “In Russia, the communists weren’t real communists,” he explains to Galili, “certainly not the counterfeits of Lenin and certainly not Stalin. I’m a real communist. Marx wasn’t a Bolshevik.” He doesn’t waver in this view when the Haaertz reporter points out to him that Marx wasn’t a member of Likhud either. But her question of how the two–Marxism and Likudism–mesh goes over his head.
“Read this,” he says, pointing to one of the volumes of Das Kapital. “The rules written here are Marx’s economy. Bibi understands these rules. More or less.” A remark that Bibi is a capitalist does not sway him. “So was Marx,” he claims, without showing any confusion.
And so when you put it all together Kozlents is a symbol of two events being commemorated this week: the Soviet defeat of the Nazis and the 60th Anniversary of Israel’s independence. For him the two are in an eternal dialectical relationship. “Without our victory over the Nazis, there wouldn’t have been a state,” he proudly tells Galili. “Everything is connected.” Such is the happy life of a Red Army veteran, Zionist, and Marxist Likudnik. Happy Victory Day and Independence Day, Don.
Popularity: 1% [?]
May
8
The Bald-Hairy Theory of Russian Leaders
May 8, 2008
The Bald-Hairy Theory of Russian Leaders. I guess this is kind of like how every odd numbered Star Trek movie sucks. Anyway, this is courtesy of Veronica Khokhlova’s run down of Russian Live Journal reactions to Medvedev’s inauguration. It also seems that there are good and bad sides to Kremlin Inc. Sure they provide no space for any opposition and forces people to attend useless Dissenters’ Marches, but at least the inauguration briefly cleaned up Moscow traffic. Says LJ user dolboeb (Anton Nossik):
Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich,
Congratulations on assuming your new post. I hope you enjoyed the ceremony as much as I did. I thank you for providing me with a rare opportunity to see daytime Moscow without traffic jams. Please consider holding inaugurations once every week, preferably on Wednesdays. I think this could contribute to solving many traffic problems of the Russian capital.
Perhaps Kremlin Inc. can bring a few to Los Angeles?
Popularity: 2% [?]
May
7
The King is Dead! Long Live the King!
May 7, 2008
Popularity: 2% [?]
May
6
Soviet Agitation Trials
May 6, 2008
Robert Amsterdam’s blog has a translation of a fascinating Kommersant Vlast’ article (the Russian version is here along with some great photos.) on one of the more peculiar forms of early Soviet propaganda: the agitation trial. The article argues that agitsudy were one of the ways “the Bolsheviks managed to change the attitude of tens of millions of people towards the repressions being conducted by them.” I’m quite familiar with agitsudy and their role in fostering a Soviet-style morality among the illiterate masses. I have a few copies of these court room dramas. They come in such stiff names as Trial of Sexual Promiscuity and Trial of Hooligans. I use one titled Trial of a Komsomol or Komsomolka for Breaking League Discipline in my discussion of Komsomol expulsion.
Here is a description of what a typical agitsud looked like:
The most serious attention was devoted to imparting to the staged trial full similitude with a real one. In one of the instructions was said:
“The space where the staged trial is put on must itself recall the general appearance of a courtroom. On a dais – the stage in the auditorium or on a specially cobbled-together platform is placed a table, covered with red cloth. At the table are three chairs: for the chairman and the two members of the court. At the left side – a rostrum for the defender, at the right – the same kind of rostrum for the prosecutor. Somewhat deeper – a table for the secretary and the stenographer. At the sides two doors – one, leading to the “Deliberations room”, the other – to the “Witness [room]”. Somewhat below the level of the stage – a special dais for the defendant.
From this same dais appear the witnesses as well. The stage is decorated with portraits of Lenin, people’s commissar of justice Kursky, the procurator of the republic Krylenko and so forth. On the walls halls posters with slogans: “The proletarian court defends the conquests of the October revolution”, “The proletarian court defends the interests of working people”, pictures of an old and a new courts, photos from our correctional houses, diagrams giving a general impression about the work of our proletarian courts, excerpts from our constitution concerning the proletarian court, codes of laws and so forth printed in large letters.”
It was stipulated very strictly that the trial must not last longer than 4-4.5 hours, otherwise the viewers may tire and lose interest in what is going on. In an appendix to certain plays was appended a time sheet for every stage and every appearance. Moreover, it was especially underscored that the reading of the accusatory conclusion [bill of indictment] for the avoidance of that same loss of interest and attention must not extend for more than 20 minutes. They began to make special demands also of the quality of the accusatory conclusion. It was recommended that it be written by some kind of worker of the procuracy. And about the course of the subsequent “judicial examination” were given the most detailed and concrete indications:
“In order that some kind of bickering begin between the chairman and the defendant (this enlivens the general testimony of the defendant, interrupting his monologue with dialogue), they arrange in advance with the defendant about how he will intentionally drag out his word. The chairman interrupts him with the retort:
“‘I ask you, citizen N, to speak more briefly and closer to the matter at hand!’
“The defendant seeks support from the people’s assessors and complains that they are not letting him speak, that he can not calmly tell everything in order, that they are terrorizing him.
“It is good if at this time someone from the instigators would shout from his seat: ‘You, comrade chairman, don’t muzzle the defendant, we’ve got us a proletarian court here, and everyone can say all he knows’, while another instigator would interrupt him: ‘But if he’s spewing all sorts of garbage and completely, it can be said, not on the matter at hand, then what, the proletarian court is obligated to listen to him and waste time plain and simple.’
“Such sparring between the two instigators will evoke a certain noise in the hall, squirming on the chairs of the defender and prosecutor, the ring [Russian equivalent of “gavel”] of the chairman, while all this will enliven the session.”
Literally everything was regimented – from the character of the testimonies of witnesses and experts to the speeches of the prosecutor, defender and defendant. In essence, in political cases the defense lawyer was supposed to not defend the defendant, but together with the procurator recognize his guilt and ask for leniency due to mitigating circumstances. Thus did they slowly and quietly habituate the population to [the idea] that they do not put the guiltless on trial in the USSR.
A good description, but a few over statements. First, while agitsudy scripts provided guidelines to how to stage and conduct them, there was no guarantee that directives from “above” were followed “below.” Quite the opposite usually. Plus even after 1925, trial scripts encouraged local troupes to adapt their performances to local conditions. Many of their scripts were actually written locally. Second, there is a question to how widespread these trials were. Hundreds were written and published, but their distribution was quite small. Far smaller than newspapers, which the article rightly says hardly reached even information hungry (and literate) citizens. Therefore, I doubt “millions” of people were exposed to them.
Most of these trials were more like moral plays rather than about political enemies. Most dealt with religion, sex, martial relations, hygiene, and other ethical norms. There were some overtly political ones, especially those during the Civil War, where Red Army agitators staged mock trials of White generals–Denekin, Wrangel, and others–or to promote Bolshevik propaganda, like the Trial of Lenin.
Also, many mock trials from the 1920s were scripted to have an open ended judgment. The audience was encouraged to discuss possible verdicts according to a kind of multiple choice list. It was only in the 1930s that they became more didactic and predictable. A few historians have tried to make a direct connection between these agitation trials and the great show trials of the 1930s. Elizabeth Wood’s Performing Justice: Agitation Trials In Early Soviet Russia and Julie Cassiday’s The Enemy on Trial: Early Soviet Courts on Stage and Screen are two such examples. I remain unconvinced of their overall impact on both citizens’ moral and political outlook. At most, agitsudy belong to a whole range of mechanisms that promoted (often unsuccessfully) a particular Soviet ideological worldview.
In fact, agitation trials weren’t even a Bolshevik invention (when it came to forms of agitation, the Bolsheviks invented rather little). Nor were their Tsarist predecessors only about students putting literary characters on trials as the article suggests. Tsarist moralists organized agitation trials pretty much around the same topics as the Bolsheviks–hygiene, sex, morality, sobriety, and other topics– as a means to “enlighten” a mostly illiterate population.
The Tsarist mock trials weren’t widespread either and had minimal impact on peasant morality. When it comes to promoting a “legal consciousness” on a mass level, you would have to turn to the volost court and its Soviet predecessor, the people’s courts. To my knowledge, there has yet to be a study of the Soviet people’s courts, mostly because I think people incorrectly assume they were vapid ideological shells. There has been a study of the volost court. These, as Stephen Frank shows in his Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856-1914, were quite popular and their outcomes, often to the chagrin of Russia intelligentsia, reflected community norms rather than the “law.” And if the justice metered out by the court didn’t jive with the community, the latter took matters into their own hands via charivari, or samosud, a practice which incidentally continues to this day.
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May
5
Two Days and Counting . . .
May 5, 2008
Two days and counting before Dmitri Medvedev can lose the “elect” that sits after of his moniker President. The ceremony promises to be lavish and well choreographed. And why not? You can’t have a king without a coronation. But the question on everyone’s mind is not what Dima will do in his new position. It’s who’s in charge. Perhaps for once Russian and English language media are singing in chorus. Putin will be in charge. It’s just not clear how much.
One area VVP will certainly have sway is over the next cabinet. For the first time in a long time, the Russian Prime Minister, in this case Putin, will exercise his Constitutional right to form a government. According to Kommersant, the new government will probably look a lot like the old. Viktor Zubkov, Alexander Zhukov, Alexei Kudrin, all current vice premiers, will join the cabinet. As will Igor Sechin, Alexei Gromov, and Sergei Ivanov. Chief ideologist of Putinism, Vladislav Surkov will run Medvedev’s administration. These are all members of Putin’s clan. To solidify Putin bailiwick, there is speculation that Chapter 5, Article 32 of the 1997 law “On the Government of the Russian Federation” will be axed. Eliminating this article will strip the President’s power to appoint the heads of the military and foreign ministries.
Perhaps most important, especially if Medvedev intends to someday step out of his patron’s shadow, is that Putin’s appointments will give him a tight leash over the siloviki.
But what of Medvedev? How will he staff his administration? What does he intend to do? Few are asking because no one seems to know or really care. Nor is there any indication that Dima will spring any surprises. Besides pithy statements about fighting corruption and economic liberalization, it sounds that Dima’s role is to hold the ship steady, and remain, at least for the time being, the Skipper’s little buddy.
Honestly, how could it be anything different? Putin is the face of Russia in politics, kitsch, and culture. If Medvedev stepped into office and started shouting directions without a political base of his own, the siloviki would eat him alive. Plus, its not like Russian elite cares much. Apparently, they are too busy gorging themselves on the fat of the land to be concerned about the inner workings of Kremlin Inc.
Indeed, all seems right with the world if you’re looking out from a Kremlin window. But some refuse to drink the Kool-Aid. For them, Russia is eternally standing on the precipice of disaster. “I think one thing is dead clear. We have entered a period of profound instability in the country.” says Yevgenia Albats. In her view, “the double-headed state will inevitably lead to power struggles.”
Maybe. But that could ultimately be a good thing. Diarchy is better than nothing. Certainly better than autocracy.
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