AGENT 009
All of my friends in Russia that have managed to preserve a sense of simple compassion for their compatriots, even if their reasonable earnings could have easily shadowed that important human sense, hope that the current financial crisis will somehow help a greater number of Russians to wake up from their lethargic feast. Clandestinely, we who have left the country, hope for the same, but tend to be less optimistic.
True, in 2009 at least 3 million Russians will lose their jobs, which, their families included, should amount for up to ten million seriously displeased individuals. That is at the time when the so-called ‘stability fund' – the easy oil and gas money from the previous years – had not only been guarded away from investing it into the desperately needed infrastructure to give the local production and trade a push, but has now been used up – and definitely will be used up almost entirely – to subsidize the country's oligarchs. Billions of dollars were allocated to the Gasprom, Rosneft and other oil and gas giants, where many analysts claim the inhabitants of the Kremlin have a serious interest (and stake). Having received the funds, those companies immediately transferred them in US dollars – contrary to what the authorities tell the common people to do, inciting anti-American slogans and blaming the US for the financial mishaps.
In reality, the crisis in Russia is only partially related to the global recession. Its other half is deeply rooted in the stuffy climate that the country's government has created over the past 8 years of Vladimir Putin's rule. Characteristic of that climate is that it scares off almost any long-term and non-oil-related investments, especially small and medium-range businesses, and at the same time monopolizes both political and economic system on the macro level. With almost no local authorities being elected any more, no local leaders are interested in creating opportunities for the local businesses. Both local authorities and local businesses are very dependent and don't dare persue any innovative tactics, while the giants enjoy monopole conditions and milk the state budget, degrading morally and technologically in the atmosphere of no healthy competition. This means that producing anything is unprofitable, thinking long-term – too risky. The only thing profitable in the Putin years was excavating the natural resources, but that too, has seen its better days. In short, Putin's policies of focusing on short-term enormous profits for some and granting some leftovers to the rest in exchange for their human and civil rights (press, judicial system and elections) has brought Russia to an estate of no diversification in her economy – a doom's day scenario in recession.
Meanwhile, for those who will be laid off or fired the welfare payment will not exceed some 4,000 roubles or, roughly, less than 100 euros. At the same time, only according to the official Russian statistics (of the Prosecutor's office), corruption rate in Russia forms up to 15 percent of its GDP.
Russians have already started demonstrating in the streets. For now, mainly against specific decisions that recently have made their position only worse. (Such as introducing sky-high duty on foreign vehicles: as many as hundreds of thousands of people in the Far East of Russia are importing Japanese cars and demonstrated against this measure – they were beaten heavily by Moscow police corps flown into Vladivostok in December. Whether this sort of treatment will make the common people feel separatist sentiments is a rhetoric question).
The question remains however whether the newly formed united Democratic opposition movement called ‘Solidarity' will manage to channel the angry crowds in the direction of fighting for free elections, free press and free courts. Putin's system has cracked in the middle and the ship will sink, but will a new Russia rise from its ashes or will it break up? And will it happen peacefully?
Once the government begins prosecuting the demonstrators and the revolts turn bloody, it won't escape its collapse but will only make that collapse more painful for everyone. The Kremlin has frantically searched for enemies – first Georgians, now Ukrainians and Americans. The anti-American rhetoric is at all times' high even in private blogs. (When at the end of last year, an American court acquitted a man who had caused death of his adopted Russian 1.5-year-old, by forgetting him in an overheated car. This human tragedy was seen by many Russian bloggers as an anti-Russian act and even those who normally don't ‘deal with politics' devoted their time to the incident, saying how inhumane it had been of the Americans to price a young Russian life so low as not give the poor man a prison sentence. One girl even wrote: I hate Americans! The truth is, however, that only about half a percent of Russians, when asked what they considered important in 2008, had mentioned Svetlana Bakmina (a former YUKOS lawyer, a political prisoner, who was not let go from prison even when she gave birth – no other prisoner accused for administrative crimes has been treated this way), to say nothing of Vasily Alexanian (also a YUKOS figure), a dying man, who was only allowed to be treated in a hospital not as a prisoner once his family had gathered 50 million roubles (over a million euros) of bail money. So much for compassion. The bloggers also seem to forget that hundreds of children had died in the Beslan and the Nord Ost hostage dramas – and do they know the Russian court decisions on those children's deaths? No, because all independent investigation was stopped. Why? Partially because the people had not insisted. So much for compassion.)
Where will the anti-Western and pop-patriotic mood take the despaired Russians in the times of crisis? It hurts me to see how many of them are willing to forget sympathy for each other and the foreigners abroad only for the sake of imperial grandeur, even in hunger. Unfortunately, there is one simple thing about most Russians that even we, Russian liberals, fail to understand. Most Russians love their political leaders not for the same qualities that the Western people elect their leaders for – bringing smooth order to their internal affairs and guaranteeing their rights inside the country – but for the image that the Russian leaders create for Russia worldwide, and that image had better be dreadful.