Orientalizing post-Soviet politics?

[image source]

Andrew Wilson has an article out on openDemocracy that provides a taxonomy of post-Soviet political systems and where they stand in terms of their employment of "political technology."  The piece is interesting for its anecdotes, and I've always been a big fan of Andrew Wilson's work introducing Westerners to the concept of "political technology."  Some of the main ideas from his seminal 2005 book, Virtual Politics, are outlined in a shorter format in these remarks of his from a few years ago.

The questions that Wilson really seems to be asking with this new article - why do governments of states like Russia and Kazakhstan bother orchestrating falsely competitive elections? what is it about the political culture of certain post-Soviet states that has allowed them to more or less leave the pervasive use of "political technology" behind? are some of these countries destined to remain in some sort of political purgatory, having left behind the "hell" of an authoritarian one-party state but never reaching the "heaven" of the (ultimately unattainable) idealized, squeaky-clean, competitive political system extolled by classic democracy promoters? - are very good ones and have concrete policy applications in addressing Western approaches to other political systems now in transition in the Arab world and elsewhere, not to mention American budgets for the variety of activities that fall under the umbrella of "democracy promotion."

The clarity of the current article's thesis, though, suffers a bit from the author's implication that political dark arts and even practices as benign as the manufacturing of artificial campaign narratives are somehow unique to the post-Soviet space and are something that should be "gotten rid of" as these countries move toward some democratic ideal. 

Is it possible that Wilson believes what he calls the "highly developed industry of political manipulation" that exists in Russia and elsewhere in the region is not in many respects an imitation of our own political system with many more rough edges (and a much smaller price tag, at least when compared to American electoral politics)?  The ghost of Lee Atwater, along with generations of dirty tricksters (from both of America's august major political parties) - not to mention a fella named Breitbart - would beg to differ.

[image source - "history reveals that smear campaigns are as American as apple pie"]

I'm not proposing throwing in the towel and allowing moral relativist "whataboutism" to triumph by making us all shrug and say our systems are no better - because that's not the case.  However, I'm not sure how much we do for the cause of "democracy," however one defines it, by lumping in things like politicized judges, politicians advancing the causes of favored business interests, and advanced political campaigning - which has become a career track and educational specialty in its own right in the U.S. in recent years and includes what Americans call "dirty tricks" and Russians call "black PR" - with factors more uniquely present (one hopes) in the transitional, soft- or hard-authoritarian political systems that Wilson writes about - actual ballot-rigging, the use of law enforcement to muzzle political opponents and domination of the media space by the government.

I also take issue with Wilson's assessment that Moldova became one of the post-Soviet world's "serious potential democracies" only in 2009, but that's another story...

"Black PR" lives...

The article below reminded me of how widespread the concept of "black propaganda" or "black PR" is in Russian political life (and in the competitive world of business as well).  The term is sort of a catch-all for any kind of "dirty" campaign tactics, from American-style opposition research, "dirty tricks" and negative campaigning to mud-slinging, sabotage and the dispensing of kompromat.  Anyway, I found more illustrations for a post on this topic than I expected - all of the images here are book covers, which suggest that fictional accounts of and instructions related to "black PR" - and how to defend yourself from it - are in demand in Russia.  As a bonus, here are a couple of fliers which serve as examples of "black PR" in Moldova; and the second image at this post is one from the 2004 campaign in Ukraine.

BBC Monitoring [courtesy of JRL]
Woman appeals to Putin, says One Russia owes her for 'black propaganda' - RenTV
August 2, 2010

A scandal has erupted in Suzdal, Vladimir Region over last year's mayoral elections, Russian privately-owned REN TV reported on 2 August. A young woman, Vera Nesvyashchenko, has written to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, complaining that she has not been paid for work she carried out for the One Russia party during the election campaign, which involved destroying opponents' campaign materials, and that the work she was asked to do was not entirely legal.

"The letterboxes were checked, there were some campaign materials there, we removed them; there were posters hanging on the poles, we tore them down and (it became) waste paper. All of the waste paper we brought to the headquarters, to the town library," she said.

Nesvyashchenko admits that she was engaged in "black propaganda", the correspondent notes. She was recruited by One Russia to work on the mayoral elections in August 2009 and was promised R7,000 (235 dollars) to destroy opponents' campaign materials, plus a bonus of R7,200 to compile a list of people who were intending to vote for One Russia's candidate Olga Guseva.

Nesvyashchenko also says that she and her colleagues questioned the legality of their actions but were assured that everything was above board.

"Tatyana Aleksandrovna said that it's no problem. The period of validity for campaign posters is three hours so you can safely clean up the streets," she said. "Only in court did I find out that it was illegal and hooliganism," she added.

The correspondent noted that 5,000 people (52 per cent of the overall number of voters) cast their ballots in the mayoral election in Suzdal - a record turnout.

"At the finish, the gap (between the candidates) was minimal. Olga Guseva received just 111 votes more than her opponent Oleg Grigorenko. It is not known what the state of affairs would have been, if there had not been the so-called guards (referring to Young Guard, the youth wing of the ruling One Russia party) and their mass clean-up operation."

Grigorenko unsuccessfully appealed against the election result, the correspondent noted.

The head of the regional branch of One Russia, Sergey Borodin, called Nesvyashchenko's actions "provocation". However, the former mayor of Suzdal, Sergey Gadunin, who held the post from 2005-2009, defended her.

"I have read some commentaries which said that this is an attempted smear on the part of the opposition. You know, the opposition can have a rest. There is no need to do anything more. The party is discrediting itself in such a way that there are simply no further words," Gadunin said.

Nesvyashchenko is also preparing a lawsuit, demanding the payment of the R14,200 and a further R5,000 for moral damage.

Twittering while Russia burns

It was interesting to see the translated article below appear in JRL on the same day as Svetlana Babaeva's piece appeared dismissing the political impact of social networking and new media in Russia ("nothing more than banal social chatter"; "inconsequential prattle").  

My value add in the article below is to link to the Twitterings of these government luminaries (other than Medvedev, since I can't be fussed to figure out which is the real one, and Astakhov, since I couldn't locate his using any of the obvious search terms) - and to point out that there is an aggregator-type Twitter account called gosblogi for Russian official Twitterers.  I would also note that the only one of these guys I really try to follow is Rogozin - he is a master of the form and often manages to display his sense of humor in 140 characters or less.  Though somewhat confusingly, he appears to have two accounts - the one linked in the previous sentence and this one.

And my purpose is, in part, to plug my very own new Twitter feed (in which, of course, I will tweet a link to this post, while praying that the universe does not collapse upon itself or get stuck in some sort of infinite loop of narcissism).  You can see recent tweets in the sidebar and the whole thing here - http://twitter.com/scrapsofmoscow


Twitter Takes Off Among Russian Politicians
Izvestia [translation courtesy of JRL]
July 29, 2010
Report by Aleksandra Beluza: Authorities of Short Messages

The Twitter era has begun in Russian politics. In the wake of President Dmitriy Medvedev, who launched his micro blog in June, governors and other highly placed figures have arrived there. A round the clock personal broadcasting channel, which is what Twitter essentially is, can be used during elections to mobilize the population when actions are being conducted.

Thanks to Twitter (from the English "to twitter") politicians all over the world are "taking off their jackets" and giving us the chance to see a stream of their personal news. Here is Dmitriy Medvedev writing about his visit to Belgorod Oblast: "I flew in to Alekseyevka. I went to the graves of my great grandmothers and great grandfathers. I was going for the first time. For work, as always." Now Medvedev has over 50,000 regular readers on Twitter.

Medvedev himself reads the micro blogs of US President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But presidential aide Arkadiy Dvorkovich believes that it is precisely the Russian leader who has the best Twitter. "None of the leaders is comparable," Dvorkovich wrote on his own Twitter. "Where else will you see a photo taken by him personally (Medvedev -- Izvestiya)?" A picture called "view from the window of my hotel" taken by Medvedev in San Francisco has already been viewed almost 233,000 times, for example. Dvorkovich himself also posts a lot of photographs on his micro blog. He also writes quite openly -- for example, that "it is very hard to sleep after a week's tour in North America, but it is harder for the president."

"What does Twitter give you? Why are you ready to spend time on postings?" Izvestiya asked Dvorkovich on Twitter.

"Not a great deal of time is spent, but the ability to set out thoughts and share them concisely is developed," the presidential aide responded before five minutes had passed.

There are already around 20 senior Russian politicians and hundreds of officials at the level of deputies and heads of departments, including in the regional administrations, and also mayors, on Twitter. However, it is not pleasant to read all the micro blogs. Out of 10 governors only three write really interestingly -- Nikita Belykh (Kirov Oblast), Dmitriy Zelenin (Tver Oblast), and Mikhail Men (Irkutsk Oblast). Zelenin in particular distinguished himself by simply writing the following after Medvedev's departure from the Seliger youth camp: "The boss has left. The Tver forum and Seliger went well. I feel like a horse at a wedding -- with my muzzle in the flowers, and myself in a lather."

" Twitter has become a little personal news agency for politicians," managing partner of the Sotsialniye Seti (Social Networks) agency Denis Terekhov believes. "And here it is a question of information openness -- is the person ready to write quickly and without coordinating, without thinking about whether he has said it right or wrong 10 times? I think politicians who join Twitter are a priori more open than others. In this sense Twitter can be an acid test."

Essentially Twitter today is a test of a politician's openness -- is he ready to show that he is a person like everyone else? Mikhail Men admits: "I listened to (singer Vladimir) Vysotskiy all day." Dmitriy Rogozin, Russia's permanent representative to NATO, writes: "I have arrived in Moscow for a week's vacation; 360 degrees Centigrade (as published) is not that hot. It has been hotter at our NATO sessions." Pavel Astakhov, the ombudsman for the rights of the child in Russia, characterizes his secretariat like this: "I have 12 women working for me. I call them the 'child's special purpose troops.'"

There are only two party leaders here, Sergey Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council and the head of Just Russia, and Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). They both write every day, but somewhat turgidly. Denis Terekhov believes that "the part ies are quite sluggish and it is hard for them to use Twitter as a real channel of communication." In the opinion of other experts, Twitter could attract them not so much as an information technology as a mobilization technology.

"Many politicians are seeking communication with their target audience here -- the middle class and young people," Dmitriy Badovskiy, the deputy director of Moscow State University's social systems scientific research institute, says. "Plus Twitter gives an instant link with quite a big audience. And this makes it possible to gather supporters, coordinate observers at elections, and publish current information quickly. So I think that as the elections approach, activity and testing of Twitter as a possible environment for political mobilization will increase."

The 10 most popular Russian politicians on Twitter (by number of micro blog followers):

Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev 52,896
Russian's permanent representative to NATO Dmitriy Rogozin 7,513
State Duma Deputy Konstantin Rykov 3,769
Federation Council Speaker Sergey Mironov 2,084 [strangely seems to have protected tweets]
Tver Oblast Governor Dmitriy Zelenin 1,988
LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy 1,716
Kirov Oblast Governor Nikita Belykh 1,489
Presidential aide Arkadiy Dvorkovich 1,309
Perm Kray Governor Oleg Chirkunov 812
Children's Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov 535

 Perhaps tweeting is, for Russian officials in the era of Medvedev, something akin to 

taking up tennis under Yeltsin or becoming a martial arts beast / skier under Putin.

18 years ago...

[image source - a personal memoir from someone who was there]

[image source - a great series of photos from 1991]

Last week, Snob.ru asked its community of readers and "global Russians" whether they remember August 21, 1991, the date when the GKChP and bit the dust - and with it, any chance that the USSR could be preserved. For those unfamiliar with the acronym, it stood for "State Committee on the State of Emergency," the group of people behind the attempted putsch which - much too late - aimed to derail Gorbachev's reform (or liberation, or running into the ground, if you prefer) of the Soviet Union.

[image source]
Boris Yeltsin at the barricades with his bodyguard Aleksandr Korzhakov,
whose apparent role in ruling the country (at least according to his tell-all
memoir) made him infamous during the '90s as a symbol of poor governance

The comments are pretty emotional and talk about the various stages of people's feelings about Russia's post-Soviet experiment:

Naive but wonderful feelings of unity - "A couple of times during the night [of 20-21 Aug.] I had a completely incredible feeling, as trite as it sounds, but a feeling of unity with my people [с моим народом], with all of the people [со всеми людьми] who had gathered there for whatever reason. It was a physical feeling of brotherhood, which I have never felt since. By 1993 it became clear that in 1991 we had been total idiots. What remained was an unpleasant aftertaste and those feelings, and it's not clear what to do with them. They have been lost for nothing. And it's a pity."

Later disappointment - "Everyone had incredible - and naive, as it later turned out - hopes...... Who could have known then that the nomenklatura (in epaulets and otherwise) would - having repainted itself - steadily come crawling back, once again grabbing up everything for itself, although now in the role of 'state capitalists'."

Dashed hopes - "Those were days when the hope appeared that there would be real democracy in [our] country. However, that hope rather quickly died a quiet death....I remember that since then I have never seen so many normal, human faces in one place. The first sign that nothing would really change was when they allowed the Communist Party to continue. First they banned it, and then they authorized it on the sly - that little fact left a feeling of extreme disgust. And didn't leave any hope for a better future."

Postcard of SVO as it looked in the late-Soviet era.

And one of Snob's readers had an interesting story which I've translated:

It was one of the most powerful impressions of my life!... At the time, I was working as a line customs inspector at Sheremetyevo-2. In those days, all of the flights with people leaving to live in Israel departed early in the morning (around 5am), so that arriving foreigners would not be discomfited by this picture of thousands of people emigrating. Naturally, all of the people leaving would show up at the airport the night before, and all night the departure halls were noisy, people would hold farewell parties for their departing friends and relatives; some laughed, some cried...

On the night of August 21, the departure halls were DEAD QUIET! And thousands of absolutely white faces, raised up to the monitors which had been set up in the airport, on which a single question was frozen - WILL THEY LET US OUT OR NOT? It was a frightening picture, burned into my memory...

The GKChP plotters and their not-so-bad fates (not counting Boris Pugo, who shot himself), 15 years later, as reported by AiF in 2006:

[image source]

More: Reports on the GKChP anniversary from 2004 and 2006.
Paul Goble's impressions of Russians' historical memory of August '91.

Rating the media - and the governors

Medialogia, a useful ratings website I've followed in the past (which, however, seems not as frequently updated now that the election cycle is over) has a couple of interesting recaps of the Russian media market. The most comprehensive is the rating of newspapers and magazines most frequently cited in the Russian media in 2008. Interestingly, four of the top ten newspapers and five of the top ten magazines are either foreign or are Russian editions of foreign publications (albeit with local talent and content). Medialogia also has a rating of the most authoritative internet media for the fourth quarter of last year.

Also quite interesting is the ranking of governors by mentions in "central" news media for December 2008 (excerpt above). It's predictable that Luzhkov and Matviyenko would head up the list, but the drop-off in number of mentions once you get outside of the two big cities is precipitous.

Also, the previous month's bronze medalist, that connoisseur of track suits and Hummers, Ramzan Kadyrov, was knocked down a peg in December by erstwhile opposition leader and new governor of the Kirov region Nikita Belykh. Belykh's appointment occasioned much hand-wringing among the opposition about whether he was selling out or on the contrary taking an opportunity to demonstrate that politicians from the non-United-Russia camp can be successful as managers - or whether, on the third hand, he was being set up for failure by the powers-that-be by being given the governor's spot in a struggling region.

Another worthwhile clipping

From today's JRL (original article in Russian is here) - Furman's analysis of the near abroad is always worth a close read:

Nezavisimaya Gazeta
January 21, 2009
Article by Dmitriy Furman: "The Policy of the Siamese Twins"

We do not have separation of powers or even a diarchy. We have highly hampered powers.

Another scandal has broken out in the European home. Everyone lives in tranquility in this home and everyone is friendly to some extent. Wailing can always be heard near the eastern entrance, however. Many people live on this side of the building, but when the shouts are heard, everyone knows it is not Ukraine bickering with Belarus, not Latvia fighting with Lithuania, and not even Armenia arguing with Azerbaijan (they were at war and they still "do not say hello to each other," but they do not start any scandals either). It is Russia "getting up off its knees" and fighting with one of its neighbors.

We Rail Against the Social Order

This happens for a variety of reasons -- because Estonia moved the Bronze Soldier, because we do not like Moldovan wine, because we support the separatists in Georgia, and certainly because of the prices of the gas we deliver and the transit fees for this gas. We are more or less accustomed to gas controversies, but this time the scandal acquired colossal dimensions, affected all of the people in the building, and is being discussed in every household.

The argument that these scandals are neurotic in nature and give Russia exactly what it does not want (the anger of its neighbors, who dream of being less dependent on it and having less to do with it in general, and the Western countries' treatment of it as a "problem state," with which "something has to be done") is self-evident. The connection between this policy (if it can be described as such) and the evolution of our social order is also quite obvious. On the one hand, our order is the main cause of our isolation and the reason for the impossibility of our integration into the alliances of the developed democratic countries and for the danger of the expansion of these alliances. On the other, the disappearance of the opposition in our country and the total unanimity of our main media outlets are a sign of the atrophy of critical thinking, which can restrain neurotic impulses and correct behavior. All of this is understandable, but something else is less understandable: the reason that our conflicts with our neighbors acquired this unprecedented intensity after Putin left office as the president.


First, Second, Third

The fundamental outlines of our foreign policy, just as the fundamental outlines of our sociopolitical system, took shape before Putin took office. Putin's personal mindset (we can recall his image of the boy walking toward a hostile group, clutching a piece of candy in his "sweaty fist," hoping to exchange it for something better but knowing it might be taken away from him instead) and his professional habits were ideally suited to our public thinking and those established outlines. Our second president strengthened and thoroughly developed everything that was put in place when the first president was in office. The futility of that policy, in which we were driving ourselves into a corner, was already fairly obvious after Putin took office. Furthermore, there was a sense that Putin's increasing anxiety and irritability toward the end of his term were connected with his vague awareness of that futility, and his decision to leave office was due partly to his realization that the next stage of development would require a different person, someone with a different mindset and a different image. It was no coincidence, of course, that when Putin named his successor, it turned out to be a man who was of the same stature (which evidently was extremely important), but did not have the same social origins and the same mindset. He was not as stiff, he was not at all neurotic, and he had some righteous and liberal tendencies. There was every reason to expect the new president to make some "corrections" in the policy line.

In democratic systems, the opposition waits for each mistake the government makes, exaggerates it, and strives not to be ignored. The government, knowing that elections are on the way, strives to avoid mistakes and has to listen to criticism and take it into consideration. If it is unable to adjust its policy line, it ceases to be the government and someone else makes the adjustments instead. The system of democratic rotation is a mechanism built into the society for the constant adjustment of the policy line and the correction of mistakes.

This mechanism does not exist in undemocratic systems. Even in these systems, however, the policy line is periodically adjusted. In tsarist Russia, each new tsar made some changes in policy. The new tsar was the new man in charge, he could look at policy from a new standpoint, and he had no reason to stubbornly defend the obvious mistakes of his predecessor. After all, they were not his mistakes. This also happened in the Soviet era. As soon as Stalin died, his successors ended the futile Korean war, and the thaw began soon afterward. Why did the change of presidents in today's Russia not lead to policy adjustments? Why did it actually intensify its most dangerous aspects instead? Why did we start moving more quickly toward an impasse instead of trying to avoid it?

Side Effects

We have already caused ourselves colossal damage in the two conflicts of the "early Medvedev era." As a result of the Georgian conflict, Georgia, under any president whatsoever, will be Russia's enemy for many decades, and we do not have the slightest idea of what should be done about Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which even Belarus has chosen not to recognize). As a result of the gas conflict with Ukraine, we not only lost our good reputation (although these fine points are no longer relevant here), but also lost billions of dollars and will lose tens of billions more in the future-- an amount many times the sum we ever could have gained from Ukraine. We abruptly intensified our isolation tenfold. We strengthened the tendency toward European integration, which is something we did not need at all, because it is more convenient for us to take advantage of the conflicting interests of various European countries. The gas conflict also revealed the surprising inertia and ungainliness of our policy line. It is obvious that the conflict did not have to happen. The agreement Putin and Tymoshenko recently reached could have been concluded in December. When it became completely obvious that it was time to end the conflict, when Europe was freezing and moaning, we could have concluded the agreement and turned the gas back on in a day or two, but this is the third week that nothing has been done.

I think the reason for the intensification of our propensity for conflicts and our sluggishness is the highly peculiar situation of the tandem Putin created. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and give up the presidency. But he could not give up his power, as Yeltsin did, and he chose to become the prime minister. It would have been psychologically difficult and even dangerous for a man as young and healthy as Putin to give up all of his power. Besides this, Putin probably thought he could consolidate the government, help the young president, and guarantee the continuity of policy by taking office as the prime minister. He attained his goals, but the attainment of any goal often has unforeseen side effects. By changing offices, Putin created a situation hampering his friend and successor, himself, and our entire political mechanism.

We now have a president who was chosen by his prime minister, and the removal of this man from office would be incredibly difficult for the president in the psychological and political sense. By the same token, even if the prime minister regrets his choice, he has virtually no chance (at least until 2012) of getting rid of the president he chose. Our ruling tandem is "fused together by a single goal" and is even something like a set of Siamese twins, and any operation to separate the two would be extremely dangerous and frightening to both of them and to our entire political system.

There is no doubt whatsoever that our rulers are friends and that Putin chose a man he trusts more than anyone else as his successor. There are certain situations that objectively breed conflict, however, and they are stronger than we are. We must not think, for example, that the members of the Stalinist Central Committee Presidium "made a mistake" when they elected Khrushchev, or that Khrushchev was a villain, planning from the very start to destroy the people who had put their trust in him and with whom he had shared whole barrels of wine at Stalin's dacha. It is just that all of them were in a situation in which conflict was inevitable, and Khrushchev's victory was the highly probable outcome. The same can be said of many historical conflicts between friends and colleagues -- from the conflicts between the Roman triumvirs to Yeltsin's conflict with Rutskoy and Khasbulatov.

Trapped by Each Other

Putin and Medvedev are friends, but they have ended up in a situation which is objectively uncomfortable, painful, and conflict-prone. It is a situation in which neither can make a single move freely, because the people around them are waiting with a sinking heart for any sign of real or imaginary disagreements between the rulers, and any sign of disapproval of one partner in the tandem could give rise to an extremely painful conflict with unpredictable results and to overall destabilization, which both men dread. Putin and Medvedev are very different people, and there are signs of their differences of opinion, if not disagreements. Medvedev may have said it was wrong to "create nightmares for business" at the very time that Putin was "creating nightmares" for Mechel, for example, and Medvedev even expressed his dissatisfaction with the excessively bureaucratized government recently. These statements probably were not meant to send any particular message, however. At a time when the president's decision truly could have sent this kind of message, Medvedev, who obviously is not an evil man, nevertheless did not pardon Svetlana Bakhmina.

Any attempt at the adjustment of the policy line would be extremely difficult and dangerous in this situation. If Putin had simply gone away, as Yeltsin did, Medvedev could have made some changes in our policy and could have blamed various difficulties on the burdensome legacy he had inherited, as Putin had done earlier and Yeltsin had done before him (every president inherits a burdensome legacy). He cannot do any of this, however, because Putin did not go away. If the prime minister had not been Putin, Medvedev could have sent him packing and then gone on to make some changes in policy and to blame everything on the man he fired. But Putin cannot be removed from office! If, on the other hand, Putin had stayed in the president's office, there would have been less chance of policy adjustments, but they nevertheless would exist. It is difficult to admit one's own mistakes, especially for a man who only hears words of praise and support from every direction. It is possible, however. Now there is no possibility of this being done by Medvedev or by Putin.

The present situation is not a lawful democratic case of the separation of powers or even a case of diarchy. This is a case of severely hampered powers. Medvedev cannot be a normal, fully empowered president as long as Putin is the prime minister. Putin, a man who was just recently referred to as the national leader and whose face was on the T-shirts handed out to Nashi members, cannot be a normal prime minister, modestly working on the crisis-ridden economy and waiting to be dismissed. They are fused together. Siamese twins have to synchronize their moves. They have to move together along an appointed route, not deviating from it in any way. It is logical that the leading member of the tandem is Putin, if only because all of the current conflicts are continuations of conflicts that existed when he was the president. He has already mastered the proper reactions and he is more familiar with our common route leading to an impasse.

The gas conflict could have been resolved quickly. If Medvedev had done this, however, it would have signified indirect criticism of Putin. Some people would have been certain to say that Putin raised Russia up off its knees, but Medvedev is a weak man who makes concessions. Others would have said that Putin led us into a blind alley and Medvedev had led us out of it. If, on the other hand, Putin had done this himself, it would have been an admission of his own mistakes. Theoretically, this would have been possible for President Putin, but it is not something Prime Minister Putin can do. As a result, the conflict acquired unprecedented dimensions, and a problem that could have been solved in a day at a loss of a few billion is now taking weeks to solve at a loss of tens of billions.

Our ship of state is sailing in an unknown direction. Neither Putin nor Medvedev knows where they are sending it. Of course, even in the absence of a distinct route, the captain of a ship can change course if he sees reefs. If, on the other hand, there are two captains and they are Siamese twins, their reactions are slowed down and they lose control of the ship. The storm of the crisis is ahead. The losses we incurred during the gas crisis as a result of this loss of control are only the beginning.

Crisis and unintentional comedy

R.I.P.

barabanch has a post about the impact of the economic crisis on the Russian media sector - not his first on the topic, as media in Russia, as elsewhere, have been shedding staff, scaling back publication schedules, and going belly-up for months now. This time, the unfortunate news is that the online magazine Izbrannoe has stopped publication. It will be missed by many, among the things I appreciated about it during its less-than-two-year life span was its publication of Nashi and DPNI propaganda materials which might not otherwise have reached a broad audience.

Meanwhile, unintentional comedian and United Russia shishka Boris Gryzlov has a very simple way of addressing the crisis: denial. According to RIA Novosti, "[Gryzlov] observed that the global financial crisis is called 'global' because it's happening outside of Russia." Right. And if you believe that, I've got a class A development project in Moscow for you to invest in.

Жертва Телевидения*

While the video below (titled "Attention: Lukashism is hazardous to your health" by the person who posted it to YouTube) shows an individual who is an extreme case, it nevertheless is instructive to anyone who wonders why political opposition is so unsuccessful at gaining traction in places like Russia and Belarus.

There are many reasons, of course: incompetence of the opposition overall, lack of an appealing platform or practical solutions, limited access to media or the "administrative resource," and opposition leaders who refuse to cooperate with each other. But one very important reason is the potency of government propaganda, which portrays any non-loyal opposition as externally funded and dedicated to the collapse of the state, and the susceptibility of certain segments of the population to that propaganda.

The interview subject here talks at various times about shooting, skinning alive, and gassing to death those who protest Lukashenko's rule, and makes repeated and irate references to their American funding, before completely losing it at the end and cursing out whoever is doing the interview. Apparently this was filmed in either early or late 2008 in Gomel', Belarus.

This comes via drugoi - where commenters pointed out that this clip did not actually appear on Belarusian TV and wondered whether the person shown might be mentally ill (watch the clip and you'll see that's not an outlandish question).

*With apologies to Vysotsky.

A thousand words

Assuming these photos are not the result of creative Photoshopping (and I have no reason to think they are), each provides a bit of wonderful, if somewhat dated, political commentary.

They are both by iruha, a photoblogger who lives in Elista, which by all accounts I've seen (particularly this one) is at least an interesting place to visit.

I found these masterpieces entered in an online photo contest sponsored by Samsung:

Author's caption: "This is our motherland"
This is a suitable epitaph for the erstwhile political party Rodina (Motherland),
which often seemed more concerned with stirring up ethnic tension than with
helping out Russians like the elderly woman foraging for food in this photo.

Author's caption: "Election campaign" ("предвыборная гонка")
The sign on the truck reads, "[2nd] of December - Everyone to the polls!"

"For Putin," once again...

I first reported on the online For Putin (Za Putina) movement last year. At the time, it was an amorphous initiative which seemed at first to be aimed at encouraging Putin to stick around for a third term. It ended up doing nothing more than providing another platform for Russia.ru videos and, one supposes, a bit of assistance with online PR during the election cycle and presidential transition.

As with all such websites, one might just as easily conclude that it was set up in order to attract Kremlin or campaign funds (if there was any difference between the two) to web design companies affiliated with its organizers or to demonstrate the zealousness of their support for the correct political line.

Now, ITAR-TASS reports the following (via JRL):

Nationwide Movement 'For Putin' Flings Doors Open

MOSCOW, November 18 (Itar-Tass) - The all- Russia movement "For Putin" is opening public offices in all regions of the Russian Federation to improve the population's competence in matters of law, Co-chairman of the public movement. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov declared at a forum " In Support of Vladimir Putin's Course."

The public offices will provide juridical consultations to the population to improve their knowledge of law, Astakhov said. Such offices will be affiliated to Vladimir Putin' public reception rooms in regions, the lawyer added. Such public offices are needed as much as ever now because the population is concerned over the world financial crisis and consequences it might entail for the Russian economy, Astakhov said.

The Movement " For Putin" created a year ago fully supports the present course "Strategy-2020" and the initiatives voiced by President Dmitry Medvedev in his State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly, Astakhov said.

Initiative groups in support of Vladimir Putin met in the city of Tver last November and organized a public movement "For Putin". Representatives from 80 regions, where meetings had been held in support of Vladimir Putin's course, attended the meeting. They elected a ten-strong Coordination Council that represents all the federal districts of the Russian Federation. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov, surgeon Renat Akchurin and Head of the trade union of workers of the agrarian -industrial sector Natalia Agapova were elected co- chairmen of the Coordination Council of the movement " For Putin".

At the moment, the news feed on Zaputina.ru hasn't been updated to reflect the new initiative. My first thought is that, although Putin did attend university at LGU's law faculty, it's odd that he would become the public face of what seems to be some sort of nascent legal aid movement. After all, Medvedev was a practicing lawyer for much longer. Anyway, perhaps this is a meaningless bit of non-news, but it was an item that caught my attention.

As a side note, Astakhov, a real lawyer who studied first at the KGB's higher school and later at Pitt Law, achieved notoriety for his involvement in the defense of accused spy Edmond Pope and as a lawyer for NTV during its last days under Gusinsky. He has found widespread fame in Russia as a TV lawyer and was one of the people associated with the ZaPutina website when it was launched in November 2007. An interview with Astakhov on his own website (as in many interviews of this genre, the interviewer is not identified and the responses appear to have been carefully drafted) contains a passage, in which he essentially embraces being called a "careerist." He does seem to have made a seamless jump from defending the '90s-era oligarchy to promoting Putin's course, although in this he has much in common with many Russian political pundits.

His "Hour of Trial with Pavel Astakhov" TV show already apparently provides free legal services to the public (see page 5 of this pdf), so perhaps for him this is an extension of a personal project under the Presidential Prime Ministerial banner.

As another side note, the site that went live last year (which, one can assume, will be rolled out once more if Astakhov's statement is more than a flash in the pan and "Za Putina" returns to the public eye) is not the first iteration of an online movement unabashedly "For Putin." The website's earlier incarnation, which looked virtually the same from its launch in March 2005 through the beginning of November 2007 (shortly after which the new, improved ZaPutina 2.0 was rolled out), has been preserved by the good people at archive.org. Archive.org's "Wayback Machine" is an extremely useful resource for sifting through the dirt of Russian politics as it appeared on the internet for the past 10 years or so.

Medvedev changes the game

Реформа Медведева В своем первом послании Федеральному собранию президент Дмитрий Медведев провозгласил кардинальную реформу государственной власти. Меняются сроки полномочий и роли президента, председателя правительства, парламента, федерального и региональных, и политических партий. Далее

Six-year presidential terms? Weren't people talking about this a few years ago as a way of insuring that VVP doesn't, you know, get bored in his dotage?

See also aggregated coverage of this from Yandex.

Song for Sarah, and other Election Day bits

In honor of the election watched 'round the world, here is this mildly entertaining contribution to the online body of material (growing fast, but probably with a short shelf life) poking fun at Sarah Palin. It seems to be by a couple of faux Russians, presumably based somewhere in the Lower 48:

If actual Russians could vote, it appears that they would support Obama but be somewhat indifferent, unlike the rest of the world, which seems to favor Obama by a landslide - well, except for Georgia (but see here) and Israel.

The preference for Obama is not shared by Russians who have emigrated to America, reports Ekho Moskvy - they overwhelmingly support McCain. Eugene Ivanov of the Ivanov Report eloquently presents the minority perspective of a pro-Obama Russian-American.

And yes, I know the difference between online polls and actual polls - RIA Novosti has a more advanced take on the traditional online poll, providing visitors with an opportunity to vote "Yes" or "No" on certain key campaign statements supposedly made by the candidates (you vote on each statement without being told which candidate made it).

Users are then told which of the candidates their responses suggest they support. What's interesting about the statements presented is that I doubt some of them ever passed either of the candidates' lips as presented, and a couple even seem a bit like "push-polling" questions. Plus, most of them deal with the US-Russian relationship, which wasn't exactly the focus of the campaign (though I understand why it's the focus of RIAN's fun app). Anyway, the RIAN thing can't be right, because it told me I am torn between McCain and Obama:


On a tangentially related note, by strange coincidence this is the second (presidential) Election Day in a row I'm spending in London. This morning we went to the US Embassy to receive some unrelated American Citizen Services and dropped off our absentee ballots for delivery to the motherland. Unfortunately, no matter who the next president is, I doubt he'll be able to reinvent the world so that our diplomats in friendly nations no longer feel they have to live in bunkers.

And on a barely related note, I wanted to send a congratulatory shout-out to the good people at Global Voices, who received a much more substantial shout-out last week - from the Washington Post - for their excellent Voices Without Votes project.

[update Nov 5] Thank goodness for MSNBC's internet-accessible election coverage. Without it, there is no way I would have been able to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to see McCain concede and Obama orate. Chris Matthews may be annoying, but he's nowhere near as annoying as watching Brits try to fill airtime talking about US politics with D-list "experts."

Here is further confirmation that there is "no Obamamania in Russia" (and I'm not referring to Medvedev welcoming Barry to president-elect status by announcing missile deployments). And some thoughts about the contest from Ukraine.

[update Nov 7] Here is an interesting compilation of Russian elite opinion soundbites from Kommersant-Vlast.

Cause and effect, a.k.a. "диктатура закона"

Cause:

"Mechel was selling steel in Russia at twice the price it put on exports," Putin said in televised comments. "And where has the margin for the state taxes gone?"

Mechel's owner, billionaire Igor Zyuzin, was reportedly ill and not present at the meeting to hear Putin's threat.

"The director has been invited, and he suddenly became ill,'' Putin said. "Of course, illness is illness, but I think he should get well as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will have to send him a doctor and clean up all the problems." [...]

"I'm asking the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to pay special attention to the problem -- and maybe even the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office."

Watch the video. As one of the commenters at drugoi's post on this topic noted, it's not just the words, it's the intonation - and, I would add, the gestures. And the swift official follow-up. No doubt "А маржа где?" will soon become a catchphrase in Moscow OCG and high finance circles alike.


Effect:

[source]

More narrative on the fallout here, here and here. No doubt someone made a bundle. Talk about bread and circuses.

Dreaming of a color revolution vaccine?

Moldova Suverana's website. The cheesy photos and low production values
make it hard to believe this is the largest-circulation newspaper in the country.

Official newspaper Moldova Suverana celebrated the Fourth of July last week in fine fashion by publishing a rather over-the-top attack on two democracy-promoting NGOs operating in Moldova, IRI and NDI. The piece they ran was a first-person account from an aggrieved former IRI employee who seems to have a toolshed full of axes to grind (here are a couple of articles for background), but the most amazing aspect of it was the numerous passages which seemed to have been cobbled together from stale stock phrases as though taken from some do-it-yourself anti-American verbiage kit drafted in Moscow ("now your country, too, can prevent colored revolutions!").

The timing of this article is no accident - Moldova is gearing up for elections next year and President Voronin, who cannot serve another term, would no doubt like to ensure a smooth succession, whether to another representative of the Communist Party or some other designated successor (sound familiar?).

Thus, a full frontal attack on IRI and NDI, which are perceived as proliferators of "colored revolutions" in the post-Soviet space, could well be an attempt to lay the groundwork for a campaign strategy modeled on the one used by United Russia in the '07-'08 Russian electoral cycle. Under that model, any potential - or even long-shot - challengers are dismissed as foreign agents who - in concert with the "meddling Americans," of course - want to, in the words of this article, "overthrow...the Constitutional regime elected by citizens of the republic through democratic elections."

One Moldovan blogger , who seems to be in a good position to comment on such things, [update: not anymore (see comments below)] wonders whether Marian Bunescu, the ex-IRI employee who has stepped up with this conveniently timed denunciation, is being pulled into political games while trying to defend his rights and press his own grievances against a former employer, and also notes that Bunescu's screed excoriates both IRI and NDI, when he only had firsthand experience working with IRI.

Whatever one thinks of American democracy promotion efforts, colored revolutions are impossible without genuine, broad-based discontent within the country with the government, and I'm not sure that exists in Moldova at the moment, so attacking these NGOs may be overkill. In any event, any reservations about an activist democracy agenda should be somewhat neutralized by passages like these (excerpted from the Moldova Suverana article, a full translation of which is below):

The purpose of those [democracy promotion] specialists was to favor and bring to power at all cost the parties that would undermine the statehood, integrity and sovereignty of the country where I was born and live. [...]

Since there is a lot of time till the Parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova and I do not want to be convicted of participation in bringing to power of politicians marionettes, I want to inform that NDI and IRI, under the aegis of USAID, plan to destabilize the situation in the country, as they tried before, but have not succeeded. Yes, yes, namely during the last elections in the Parliament in Chisinau, for the first time, officials of these institutions have made attempts to bring to power corrupt politicians, interested in the disappearance of the Republic of Moldova as a sovereign and independent state.

Parts of these passages could in fact be describing Russia's approach to Moldova - undermining the country's statehood and sovereignty by promoting the continued separation of Transnistria and applying punitive bans on Moldova's major exports to Russia. And Russia's policies probably have to be judged a success on their own terms - after all, Voronin, whether because he thinks it will facilitate a settlement of the Transnistria conflict, or because he has realized (like Uzbekistan's Karimov, who was the first to desert the nascent GUAM coalition) that an alliance with Russia is simpler than building bridges to the West since it requires barely a pretense of democracy and no real reforms, has swung eastward in his orientation of late.

Analyst and blogger Nicu Popescu also excerpted some of the more outrageous language from Bunescu's denunciation and paused to make this observation (my translation):

These are not quotations from the press in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, or Kuchma's Ukraine. They're from the July 4, 2008, issue of Moldova Suverana. An article that is probably the start of a harrassment campaign against [IRI] and [NDI] ahead of the elections, two American NGOs which provide assistance to Moldovan political parties.

Assistance which is made available, it's important to note, to all Moldovan political parties, including the Communists.

Popescu titled his post "Moldovan Putinism vs. IRI and NDI" and marveled at the approach of the Moldovan government:

At the same time as this harassment campaign is being launched against two American NGOs, Moldova is expecting several hundred million dollars from the US under the framework of the Millenium Challenge Account Moldova and is hoping to start talks with the EU concerning a new agreement under conditions where the EU's foreign policy Commissioner has clearly said that the prospects for such an agreement depend on the quality of Moldova's elections. But the harassment of international NGOs is totally inconsistent with democratic elections practices and strikes a blow against the government's hopes to start negotiating a new EU-Moldova agreement.

I don't really have anything else to add except to note that in the comments to his post on this Popescu quite rightly makes a distinction between Bunescu's personal employment beef with IRI, which is being resolved as it should be in the courts, and his rather sweeping and selective allegations (e.g., Bunescu mentions only the Our Moldova Alliance as receiving IRI support, when in fact pretty much all Moldovan political parties receive support from IRI on an equal footing).

I did find a small tidbit online about Mr. Bunescu's work with IRI in happier times (scroll down to the last item), but not much else.

Anyway, as promised, here is a translation of the full article (not by me):

IRI representative makes new disclosures promised at press conference

Pharisaic Democracy

Dear reader, meeting inside the headquarters "Infotag" was dictated by the need to make public some data that I have become aware of thanks to the long-time activity in the representation of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a project funded and administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). My name is Marian Bunescu and I worked in the IRI a period of four consecutive years and have to make some clarifications. For a long period of time, I can not ignore anymore the actions and processes taking place with the participation of foreign citizens, especially the U.S., which are conducting on the territory of the Republic of Moldova activities and meetings with opposition political leaders, instructing and financing them in order to overthrow in the spring of 2009, the Constitutional regime elected by citizens of the republic through democratic elections in the Parliament from Chisinau.

Intensive activity to suppress the party that legally came to power has its roots even before the elections in the Legislature of the Republic of Moldova. Namely, before the elections, at the request of IRI and NDI leadership, an impressive number of "specialists" in the areas of conducting coup d'états and orange revolutions arrived in Moldova. The purpose of those specialists was to favor and bring to power at all cost the parties that would undermine the statehood, integrity and sovereignty of the country where I was born and live. Namely because of the reported and from the fact that many times, I directly informed the head of IRI Stiven Rader about the illegality of the support of the opposition parties, basically I lost my job, being ousted illegally.

In order of the above, I want to inform you that Constantin Tanase as a lawyer with whom I had discussions last week and the current week and who is actively defending IRI's interests on the territory of the Republic of Moldova warned me, quote: "The communists will lose elections in 2009 and will come to power other political parties and I'll make you very big problems ". Advocate Tanase intimidated me and proposed a sum of money to restrain me from accusing Americans.

In that context, I want to let you know that in my presence Serafim Urecheanu asked from Rader the amount of 1.5 million dollars, to prepare for the election campaign. On this occasion I want to let you know that Mr. Urecheanu came in person several times (about 4-5 times) to the IRI office, once he arrived even at night. In the IRI's office, he held many times confidential negotiations for numerous occasions with the American in the office of Rader, in order to get their support for the parliamentary elections. Namely, because of letting the American know about my position, which does not correspond to the interests of the IRI on the territory of the republic, I can not get employed, as neither was I fired from my position at the institute nor can I come to my work place, as the American stands in the door and behaves like I am a criminal of America.

I want to inform you, that working for IRI, I had the opportunity to directly to know what "democracy", implemented by the U.S. structures, means. And those who declare and speak loudly about political pluralism and democratic values finance and train such political parties as Our Moldova Alliance. Training and preparation for elections in 2009 of political parties, which main interest is their own enrichment, are held by representatives of the IRI and the NDI through the organization of seminars and trainings, where the average citizens of the Republic of Moldova do not have access. The access is limited because they (Americans) do not want to make public the things that they teach participants, like how to take people out on the streets and how to destabilize the situation in the country. It requires an increased attention the fact that the seminars and meetings of Americans with the leaders of the opposition political parties are funded directly by Americans by cash money, money that are not controlled by any state structures in the country. Many times, during the seminars I directly participated in, I had the opportunity to monitor the way in which are financed the seminars conducted by the IRI. The following question seems logical, would Americans allow, on the territory of the U.S., the activity of foreign political organizations, which are not registered anywhere and are practically doing whatever they want under the motto of "democracy development"?

I can not remain indifferent to the way the American "bosses" act and behave towards the Moldovan citizens that work in the institutions funded by them. Thus, I intend to draw your attention that no employee of organizations funded by the Americans on the territory of our state does not pay any taxes, nor to the state budget, or the social fund. In that context, there is a logical question - do they have a similar and identical behavior in U.S. like the one they expose in Moldova? And in cases of resignation, they do not respect the legislation of the Republic of Moldova regarding the payment of due wages. In this context, I would like to mention that in the case of being fired from the organizations funded by Americans, native citizens with great difficulty can get back their work book, in which usually the necessary information and stamps are missing. As a result, the time spent working in such organizations is lost in vain and does not add up to working experience.

Today I wish to give to publicity and some aspects, in my opinion, of illegal activity of IRI and NDI. Since there is a lot of time till the Parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova and I do not want to be convicted of participation in bringing to power of politicians marionettes, I want to inform that NDI and IRI, under the aegis of USAID, plan to destabilize the situation in the country, as they tried before, but have not succeeded. Yes, yes, namely during the last elections in the Parliament in Chisinau, for the first time, officials of these institutions have made attempts to bring to power corrupt politicians, interested in the disappearance of the Republic of Moldova as a sovereign and independent state.

Thus, seeing the dirty things that take place under the aegis of "development and propagation of democratic principles" on the territory of my country, I thought well and took the decision to leave IRI. Because I do not want to take part in the dirty things, that are priorities in the plans of the Americans chiefs of IRI and the NDI. Now I want to draw your attention that the democracy being propagated by the people behind these organizations is nothing else than a fiction, well-hidden, which aims at destroying the stability on the territory of Moldova. In proof of these statements, I want to bring to your attention that training of political parties loyal to Americans in Moldova is conducted directly through the involvement of NDI and IRI in their activity, through various forms. Sometimes, to increase efficiency and image of some politicians and political parties, at the initiative of the institution in which I have worked, experts that took part in the revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia are being invited. Thus, recently, at the IRI's initiative famous Serbian experts have been invited to Moldova, who have contributed directly to disorders in Ukraine, and are now familiarizing the AMN leaders with how to get the people out in the streets, in case of failure.

I address the free media for help, to clarify the case of my illegal dismissal and defend my rights provided by law. At the same time, I address to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, as well as to the State Tax Inspectorate with the request to clarify the situation when citizens of the Republic of Moldova working for the American institutions and their labor rights are being ignored seriously.

I request, in my capacity of a citizen of the Republic of Moldova, who is not indifferent of the future of his country and its people, for the immediate implication of the organs of Prosecutor's Office and Judiciary in the clarification of the activity of the American organizations, above-mentioned. I want to inform you that due to NDI and IRI, in the neighboring countries was possible the overthrow and annihilation of legal interests of the population in favor of some politicians marionettes, who in the end have filled their pockets as a result of undertaken colorful revolutions. Pay special attention that at this moment, those countries are going through processes that influence negatively the life of simple and average people, from the countryside, who no longer have any other options but to leave the country in order to support their families by working abroad. At the moment I can declare with certainty that the main purpose of NDI and IRI is bringing to power in 2009 of the AMN leader, Serafim Urecheanu, who constantly has been seeking help and financial resources from the leadership of IRI, the American Steven Rader. He should be invited and asked if in America he participates in bringing to powers marionettes too? Does Serafim Urecheanu not understand that in the end he is selling his country and its people for some ambitions dictated from outside?

Marian BUNESCU

Reading the TV Tea Leaves in an Age of Mediacracy

In contemporary Russian politics, it may seem that "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Political events are unfolding according to a scenario predicted by many (i.e., Putin is retaining influence, at least for now), and no matter what eventually happens between Putin and Medvedev, given the array of predictions flying around, odds are someone will have predicted it. Sometimes, though, mediologists, not meteorologists, are the best way of trying to figure out which way the political winds are blowing on a given week.

Heavy coverage was given by Russian online media during the last election cycle to statistics charting TV appearances by major politicians. These figures have long been covered by some newspapers and online news sites, but the coverage by Lenta.ru last fall, in cooperation with an outfit called Medialogia - which included not only weekly statistics but also analytical reports interpreting the numbers - seemed more thorough than in the past.

Сравнительная динамика количества упоминаний ТВ-каналов в федеральных печатных СМИ [source]

Lenta also recently covered the release of a report by Mediaguide.ru (a portal which appears to be related to Medialogia) analyzing how frequently the TV networks with nationwide reach are cited in the print media - it appears this report will now be available monthly. Although it doesn't seem to analyze whether the mentions are positive or negative, the figures may be of interest to those who argue that the Kremlin's dominance of Russian TV airwaves does not stamp out the free press because of the existence of alternative print sources of news.

Masha Lipman recently made the following observation (in the Washington Post, natch) about Russian TV under Putin:

During Putin's tenure, television broadcasting was honed to perfection -- as a tool to shape public opinion. Coverage of political and public affairs is now tightly controlled through a coordinated effort of the national channels' top managers and Kremlin aides. The result is that any event, person, group or movement may be boosted or played down in the public eye in a way that would best suit the Kremlin's desires and designs; anyone deemed an adversary of the government may be discredited or vilified.

Polls indicate that the public is highly responsive to television brainwashing -- whether the campaigns are against Georgia, Ukraine or the West, or are intended to influence voting preferences. In contrast to Soviet times, the government's most effective media tools are also highly profitable. Each of the two biggest channels reaches almost all Russian households. While stations don't compete in news coverage -- news shows differ little from channel to channel -- other competition for viewers and advertisers is fierce. The result: first-class soap operas and other entertainment programs that keep people glued to their screens. Advertisers, attracted to large audiences, eagerly commit their budgets to state-controlled television.

This business model and the controlled political content are inseparable and mutually beneficial. The Kremlin-designed television diet is easily digested: Bland information is supplemented by exciting entertainment shows. As he completed his second term, Putin granted special letters of commendation to the top managers of the national channels.

The government has radically curtailed broadcast freedom, but it does not totally control speech. Some broadcast, print and online outlets with smaller audiences have maintained relatively independent editorial lines, which serves to let off steam. These outlets may create an appearance of media freedom, but they are tightly insulated from national television, effectively marginalized and kept politically irrelevant.

The huge role played by the media in shaping - and reflecting, although a chicken-and-egg question arises if you want to determine whether it molds or reflects more - the country's political climate might tempt one to call Russia a "media-cracy," though I'd probably avoid the term, as it's too much of a simplification, it sounds too much like "mediocrity" (which Russia is certainly not at the moment, no matter how one wishes to see the country), and the term was already being used over 30 years ago - and continues to be used, albeit informally - in reference to American domestic politics. It's interesting to see how one online source defines "mediacracy" in the American context:

(mē'dē-ə-krə-sē) 1. (n.) Government, usually indirectly, by the popular media; often a result of democracy going awry. A system in which politicians stop thinking and begin listening exclusively to the media regarding what the important issues are and what they should do about them. Origins: A play on democracy and news media; possible reference to being mediocre.

The suggestion is that media elites are invested with a disproportionate amount of independent political power. In today's Russia, the term would probably have to be defined slightly differently - the use of the media, in particular those controlled by the state, as an instrument of government rule through the shaping of opinions.

[image source]

Actually there is an online project named Mediakratiia (Медиакратия), or Mediacracy, which seems to have the goal of unifying young Russian journalists in covering issues in a "socially responsible" way, with what appears to be a particular emphasis on journalists working in the regions. Since the project was set up in part by United Russia and is funded by the Press Ministry, it is not difficult to conclude that the organizers have "state-friendly" in mind when they say "socially responsible."

The Mediakratiia effort from the United Russia side was spearheaded by Aleksandr Shkol'nik, one-time (and perhaps current, I'm not sure) head of children's and youth programming at Channel One and later the director of the Russian News Service under whose tenure Gazeta.ru called that radio service "Russian Brainwashing Service" after Shkol'nik's infamous attempt to introduce a rule that 50% of news coverage must be positive. The website publishes a monthly list of the "Golden Hundred" participants, young journalists who compete with each other to earn points in the following manner:

"The Golden Hundred" is a system under which the mediacrats earn a certain amount of points every month (from 1 to 15) for various types of activities, including participation in online conferences, discussion of current topics on the project's online Forum, publications, news for the "Regional Time" page, and cooperation with Mediakratiia's partners, for example the Russian News Service and the National Projects magazine.

As for the project overall, here is part of its mission statement:

"Mediakratiia" is not the power of journalism and certainly not the power of journalists - a journalist cannot and should not rule over [people's] minds. A journalist is not an "engineer of human souls" [a term coined by Olesha under Stalin about Soviet authors], but is more like a gauge reacting to any changes in society and life.

When we say "Mediakratiia," we mean the power of information over any form of human activity. In the current media-driven society, in this era of informational technologies we live in, the old saw "forewarned is forearmed" should be rephrased as "he who is uninformed is helpless."

[...]

The mass media is a weapon of mass defense, not mass destruction. Journalism is a socially responsible activity.

We want to be and we can be responsible!

[emphasis in original]

Anyway, that's what the government and the party of power are doing to raise up the next generation of "socially responsible" journalists.


Luckily, some members of the profession in Russia still seem to have the level of irreverence which in my opinion is essential to good journalism. I say this based in part on a recent online find, what looks to be the start of an absolutely fascinating new blog. I think anyone who reads Scraps of Moscow will appreciate it. It's called Newsinside.ru; here's what its creators have to say about it:

Newsinside.ru reports on the seamy side of the news and the behind-the-scenes stories of wire services, internet projects and TV companies.

Newsinside.ru's professional detectives continuously investigate the news and write about the most interesting and important items.

Unfortunately, they haven't had any new posts since May 11, but hopefully they're just taking a holiday break and this isn't indicative of that too-common phenomenon of a well-begun internet project petering out rapidly. The folks behind Newsinside.ru say they are planning on launching an English-language version, but I can't wait, so I've translated a couple of their posts below:

NTV didn't notice the tanks in Moscow
April 30, 2008

The passage of heavy military equipment through downtown Moscow was one of the most popular news stories in the Russian-language blogosphere (according to Yandex). Human curiosity was evident on the city's streets - crowds of people stood along the routes taken by the tanks and armored vehicles.

The national TV channels devoted a great deal of attention to this truly unusual event. We observed that the round-the-clock channel "Vesti" devoted the most effort to reporting the procession of heavy equipment.

Their camera was the only one to meet the tanks at the picturesque spot entering the bridge by Belorussky station (pictured). "Vesti" set up live broadcast feeds of the military vehicles moving around Moscow from five (!) different locations in the city.

Channel One limited itself to broadcasting footage on the following day. And on NTV in the day's final newscast at 10:40pm Aleksei Pivovarov didn't even mention the tanks which had attracted everyone's attention. Perhaps Pivovarov decided that NTV wasn't up to competing with Vesti's live broadcasts.

Echo of Moscow: Putin is losing his TV clout
May 4, 2008

[excerpted from this radio transcript, dated May 2]

A. VENEDIKTOV: Putin as president had another supremely powerful resource. That powerful resource was the state-run mass media. But now we see...

L. SHEVTSOVA: Whose side are they going over to?

A. VENEDIKTOV: Whose side is a good question. Here's one example: RTR, or VGTRK, which is headed up by Oleg Borisovich Dobrodeev, made a film called "Eight Years of President Putin," a rather pompous movie.

L. SHEVTSOVA: So, he's with the prime minister's vertical [of power]

A. VENEDIKTOV: And so it would seem that everything's in order: a departing president, a documentary - even a pompous one - because Oleg Borisovich has been with Vladimir Vladimirovich from the very first day and even before. I remember when [Dobredeev] left NTV, that was in January of 2000, when Putin was a presidential candidate, and Oleg called me and said, "I'm going to VGTRK, they offered me a job, you're the first to know," but that's not the point, the point is that this documentary is being aired on Saturday at 11:55am. And for people in the know, it should air in prime time. You understand? [...] It's a sort of signal: "We're with you, but we're not with you."

L. SHEVTSOVA: "We're with you, but we're standing in two different queues."

A. VENEDIKTOV: And it's the same thing now, I am absolutely sure of it, they'll start to calculate who to put on the air first and for how long. But the mass media, and first and foremost television, was a huge resource of Putin's....And Putin may start to lose them, because after all they have to put the president on the air - President Medvedev. So there's already a downside [for Putin]. [...]

L. SHEVTSOVA: It's a curious thing. We will probably yet see some very big movements and people dashing to and fro. By the way, Aleksei, I noticed these dashes - and fairly active ones - before Putin's February speech to the State Council. But after that and after he agreed to head up United Russia, people started moving in the opposite direction, back to Vladimir Vladimirovich. But, by the way, we have forgotten about the most powerful resource of Dmitry Medvedev - that is, after all, the power of the Constitution, the capability of the powerful presidency itself. And what do we have today? Today we have an attempt to embed, to implant a powerful prime-minister's vertical, which has already been created by Putin's team, to implant that vertical...

The Newsinside.ru website looks like it could be a great addition to the RuBlogosphere - they have most recently posted some coverage of the coverage of Medvedev's inauguration, and - unless I'm reading too much into things, which has been known to happen - the blog even seems to be cleverly named: it is aimed at the "news insider" and addresses itself to that person by using "newsinside[.]r" in the dative case.