| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 27, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Commentary: 'Fortress Russia': Should the West Be Afraid? A big shrug: That's the reaction of many in the West to Russia's parliamentary elections, scheduled for Dec. 19. The contest for control of the State Duma has been overshadowed by such dramas as warfare in Chechnya and lurid tales of corruption. But the West had better pay attention. The elections are quietly serving notice of something important: a gathering ideological consensus on the main issues in Russian political and economic life. For the U.S. and NATO, this coalescence of thinking may well pose fresh dangers, but it is probably preferable to a chaotic, unpredictable Russia lurching from one ideological extreme to another. The nation's major parties are lining up behind a muscular centrist ideology. Call it Fortress Russia. Economically, these political forces are rejecting the U.S.-style capitalism embraced intermittently by President Boris N. Yeltsin in favor of strong state intervention to promote Russian industry in a mixed-market economy. On national security, the parties back tough measures to defend any threat, as in Chechnya, to Russia's territorial integrity. ''There is a broad field of consensus, not only on economic issues but on many others as well,'' says Vyacheslav Nikonov, an adviser to Fatherland-All Russia, the new bloc headed by Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov and former Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov. BLUSTER. The chief danger for the West is that Fortress Russia contains a heightened element of Russian nationalism. This can sometimes take on an anti-American cast--evident in the recent bluster by Yeltsin, who responded to Bill Clinton's criticism of Russia's brutish conduct in Chechnya with a reminder that Russia still possesses nuclear weapons. Nationalism is also triggering calls to protect Russian industry through subsidies or trade barriers. Mikhail Delyagin, a former Yeltsin administration economist who now advises Primakov, says he was appalled that his Duma office contained nothing manufactured in Russia except the map on the wall and the flag on his desk. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who supports the centrist Unity party in the elections, is also pushing an aggressive, state-directed industrial policy. ''Russia is not ready for successful integration into the world economy,'' he says. Meanwhile, leading politicians are frightening Western investors with calls for ''deprivatization''--a selective review of past privatizations of state-controlled enterprises. The pols vow to undo such deals and rebid the assets if it can be shown that the deals were illegally done--a judgment likely to be made by less-than-disinterested parties (BW--Dec. 13). But the new consensus also has some welcome aspects for the West. Most striking is the more moderate posture of the Communist Party, the Duma's largest faction, which won 22% of the popular vote in the 1995 elections and is expected to do about as well this time. Although the party supports deprivatization, this is a far cry from its calls four years ago for blanket expropriations. ''These guys all want to be part of the system, not revolutionaries challenging the system, and the market is now part of the status quo,'' says Michael A. McFaul, a Russia analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. BETTER ODDS. The new centrist ideology mirrors the desires of many ordinary Russians. Boris Kagarlitsky, a Soviet-era dissident who's now a political scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, calls it ''a social-democratic consensus.'' Polls show that the public supports state control of big raw- materials enterprises--such as producers of oil and gas, he says. But there remains widespread enthusiasm for the freedom of Russians to launch their own businesses. A consensus ideology could remove at least one chronic source of instability in Russia. Yeltsin and the Communist-dominated parliament have been at odds since the Soviet Union collapsed eight years ago. Now there's a chance that the Kremlin and parliament can work together on crucial issues such as tax reform and land privatization. Fortress Russia is not what the West hoped for from the nation that jettisoned its Soviet yoke. But as long as the Russian bear doesn't become too belligerent or authoritarian, consensus may be better than chaos. By Paul Starobin Starobin is Moscow bureau chief _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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