TIME EUROPE
JANUARY 17, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 2
Viewpoint
Two Heads, Two Faces
Post-Yeltsin Russia may have a good-guy, bad-guy kind of leadership
By YURI ZARAKHOVICH
"I have found the source of all our troubles," wrote Russian poet Vasili Kurochkin in 1857. "This is our double-headed Russian Eagle." Kurochkin saw the double head of the national emblem as the symbol of "the murderers ... and thieves" who ruled his country. "There is no truth or order in the Russian world, because it has four eyes, but they see nothing," he wrote sadly.
Now, a new double-headed eaglet is hatching out of the egg that Russia's amazing democracy has laid: it has the former head of kgb Colonel Vladimir Putin, acting President and prospective strong-arm ruler, and that of Anatoli Chubais, the mascot of post-Soviet liberal reform, now a key advocate of Putin's war in Chechnya. It was Chubais who put forth Putin as heir-designate to Yeltsin, his objective being the office of Prime Minister once Putin becomes President. But Chubais is unpopular with the people, so he might choose to be the power behind a figurehead, perhaps someone like Sergei Kiriyenko, the young technocratic reformer whose short tenure as Prime Minister from March through August 1998 ended in economic disaster. Either way, Chubais will be able to pursue his version of market reform with all his Bolshevik zeal.
Russians have long been concerned about the prospect of a harsh authoritarian regime emerging in Russia along the lines suggested by Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin. Exiled from Soviet Russia back in 1922, Ilyin is now very much in vogue among seemingly antagonistic liberal-reformist and national-patriotic élites. Though opposed to communist totalitarianism, Ilyin did not believe that democracy in Russia was possible either, calling instead for "a firm national-patriotic and, in theory, liberal dictatorship." Such a regime now seems to be arising from the forces who swear by democracy and liberalism. The irony is that the nationalist-communist opposition will gladly jump on this bandwagon. Russia has been long groping for a unifying national idea. Now, Russia finds such an idea in the Chechen war. It is Chubais who claims that the war in Chechnya means the revival of the Russian armed forces, which only traitors would oppose. Communist leader Gennadi Zyuganov can take a break and rest on his red laurels. Chubais is beating his drum for him.
Early in the 1990s, Russian liberal reformers seduced Russia and the world with their promise of a free market, democracy and political freedom. But the further they progressed with their reforms, the less democracy and freedom they had to offer. The more oligarchic and rich they grew, the more they dreamed of a Russian Pinochet who would suppress opposition, take them under his strong wing and let them go ahead with what they claimed was best for Russia.
But it was the reformers' shameless greed, dishonesty and corruption that fed the flames of a conservative communist and nationalist resistance. Nothing could have contributed more to the recovery of the Communist Party in a country disgusted with the seven-decade long communist rule than the agony of 51 million Russians cast below the poverty line by botched reforms.
The result: six years later bright young reformers say that only authoritarianism can work in Russia. They insist that authoritarianism by liberal reformers is preferable to that of communists. Those who fail to see the difference, or cannot accept authoritarianism, would be wise to leave.
It is a sad fact of Russian history that liberal reformists invariably fail. Czar Alexander II's reforms cost him his life in a terrorist bombing in 1881. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms cost him his country in 1991. Tyrant reformers who rely on brutal force and coercion, like Peter the Great or Stalin, invariably succeed, but such reform invariably ends up with "the state bloating, and the people withering," to quote Russian historian Vasili Klyuchevski. Now, Putin has made public his program for "restoring a guiding role of the state to the extent dictated by national traditions." He spelled out those traditions as collectivism, paternalism and statism. Where does that leave the liberal reforms that were supposed to dismantle the thousand-year Russian paradigm of serfdom and oppression?
To hold on to power, the reformers seem to be creating a double-headed autocrat of their own. The Putin head will represent strong-arm rule, the harsh dictator who will fight his war (or wars), tighten the screws and threaten the West if it grumbles too much about the bloodshed and unpaid debts. The Chubais-Kiriyenko head will exemplify progress, modern management and economic growth--unless they get caught in another crash. If the world behaves, the new Russian Eagle will face it with the presentable and smiling head. Otherwise, the world will see the cold Putin stare over a gun barrel. A possible future under these two heads' tenure is not hard to imagine: riches and license for the chosen few, poverty and arbitrariness for the rest. Nor does it matter whether it will be Putin and Chubais or Putin and Kiriyenko, or X and Y, or Z and P, or any other combination of heads; it is the pattern that matters, and the pattern will stay.
As Kurochkin wrote almost 150 years ago: "We are used to sneakiness, and we are brave in words only, because we are all as duplicitous as our double-headed Eagle." Who do we Russians have to blame for what is happening to us besides ourselves?
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