There can be little doubt that Russian liberalism is currently in the midst of a crisis.
If someone had told me a year ago that the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko would fail to clear the 5-percent barrier in the State Duma elections, I would have had serious doubts about his competence as a political analyst and forecaster. Today, the collapse of both parties is a reality.
Officially, two liberal candidates contested the presidential election. The first, the former Communist and Agrarian Ivan Rybkin, ran nothing remotely resembling a political campaign. Instead, he delivered the kind of cheap farce of which even Oleg Malyshkin, the presidential candidate from the Liberal Democratic Party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's personal bodyguard, would have been ashamed. The second liberal candidate, Irina Khakamada, did all she could to distance herself from her own liberal past, criticizing Boris Yeltsin and insisting on the social orientation of the state. And then, without a hint of embarrassment (and perhaps not without justification), she touted her 3.84 percent share of the vote as a major success.
After my friend and business partner Platon Lebedev was arrested last summer, many politicians and experts held forth about the trampling of the law, civil rights and the threat of authoritarianism. These same people now compete to see who can offer the most saccharine compliments to officials in the Kremlin. No trace remains of the old rebellious liberal gloss. There are exceptions, of course, but they only prove the rule.
In essence, we are witnessing nothing less than the liberals' capitulation. This capitulation is not only the liberals' fault, of course, but also their misfortune. Their fear before a thousand years of history has been spiced up by the powerful taste for creature comforts acquired in the 1990s; their servility is built in at the genetic level, as is their readiness to forget all about the Constitution in exchange for another serving of sturgeon and horseradish. Russian liberals were ever thus, and thus they remain.
The phrases “freedom of speech,” “freedom of thought” and “freedom of conscience” are rapidly turning into empty cliches. Not only the general public, but the majority of the people we normally consider members of the elite, wearily dismiss them – as if to say – “We get it.” Another conflict between the oligarchs and the president. A plague on both your houses for leaving us to rot."
No one really knows or cares what has happened to the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko since their fiasco last December. Committee 2008, which presumed to become the conscience of Russian liberalism, readily admits its own impotence. “Look,” the committee says, almost apologetically, “there aren't many of us and this isn't the right time, so we can't make any promises. But all the same ...” Khakamada's idea to form the Free Russia party from the remains of Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces generated little interest apart from the bluster of a few dozen professional “party builders,” who caught whiff of some more easy money.
At the same time, the bearers of a new discourse – the ideology of the so-called “party of national revanchism” – have sprouted in abundance from Russia's political soil. This “party” encompasses faceless, drab United Russia, Rodina, all shiny with superiority over its less fortunate rivals, and the Liberal Democrats, whose leader has once more demonstrated his exceptional gift for political survival. All these people speak of the collapse of liberal ideas in Russia, though their words are usually insincere and uttered on command. They say that our country simply has no need for freedom. Freedom, they maintain, is extraneous to the goal of national development. Anyone who speaks about freedom is, in their view, either an oligarch or a bastard, which amounts to much the same thing.
In this context, President Vladimir Putin looks like liberal No. one. From the point of view of national revanchism, he is eminently preferable to Zhirinovsky and Dmitry Rogozin. When you get right down to it, Putin is probably neither a liberal nor a democrat, but he is still more a liberal and democrat than 70 percent of the Russian population. And it was Putin, after all, who absorbed the anti-liberal energy of the majority, bridled our national demons and prevented Zhirinovsky and Rogozin from seizing power in Russia. Well, not so much them – they are just gifted political players, after all – as the many supporters of their public pronouncements. Anatoly Chubais and Grigory Yavlinsky were, by definition, incapable of opposing “national revanchism.” The best they could do is to wait around for the advocates of values such as “Russia for the Russians” to boot them out of the country, as has, unfortunately, happened before in our history.
This is all true. But, all the same, liberalism in Russia cannot die, because a hunger for freedom will always be one of man's basic instincts – be that man Russian, Chinese or Lapp. Yes, the sweet word “freedom” means many things, but its spirit is indestructible and ineradicable: It is the spirit of the titan Prometheus who gave fire to mankind; it is the spirit of Jesus Christ, who spoke rightfully, not like the scribes and Pharisees.
The cause of the crisis of Russian liberalism, therefore, lies not in the ideal of freedom, even in our own particular understanding of it. As the last prime minister of the Soviet Union, Valentin Pavlov, said, it's the people that matter, not the system. Those into whose hands fate and history entrusted the preservation of liberal values in our country were not up to the task.
We must face up to this fact openly, because the time for deception is past. Perhaps this is a little more obvious from my cell at Pre-Trial Detention Facility No. 4 than it is from more comfortable surroundings.
The Union of Right Forces and Yabloko lost the election not because the Kremlin discriminated against them, but because, for the first time, the presidential administration chose not to help them out and treated them no differently than the rest of the opposition. And Irina Khakamada achieved her outstanding result of 3.84 percent not in spite of the administration's powerful machine, which paid no attention to her, but in large part thanks to the Kremlin's keen interest in increasing voter turnout.
Big business abandoned the field not because of the sudden flourishing of corruption in Russia, but because the standard lobbying mechanisms ceased to work. They were designed with a weak president and the previous Kremlin administration in mind. That's all.
Socially active people with liberal views, among whose ranks I, for all my sins, count myself, were responsible for making sure that Russia did not veer from the path of freedom. To paraphrase the famous words of Stalin at the end of June 1941: We screwed up.
Now we must analyze our tragic mistakes and admit our guilt, both moral and historical. This is the only way we will find a way out of our current predicament.
Russian liberals were routed because they tried to ignore certain important national peculiarities of Russia's historical development, as well as the vital interests of the vast majority of Russians. And they were pathologically afraid to tell the truth.
I do not mean to say that Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar et al. set themselves the objective of deceiving the country. Many liberals of the first “Yeltsin wave” sincerely believed in the historical rightness of liberalism and the need for a “liberal revolution” in a tired country which had hardly known the benefits of freedom. However, having suddenly got their hands on power, the liberals were too superficial – if not downright frivolous – in their attitude toward the revolution. They only thought about the 10 percent of the population that were prepared for the sweeping changes that came with the end of state paternalism, while forgetting about the other 90 percent. And, more often than not, they resorted to deception to gloss over their tragic policy failures.
They cheated 90 percent of the population with their lavish promises that each privatization voucher would be worth two Volga cars. Certainly, an entrepreneurial person with access to closed information and the necessary skills to analyze such information could figure out how to make the equivalent of 10 Volgas using his or her privatization voucher. But the promise was made to everybody.
They turned a blind eye to social realities when they conducted sweeping privatization, ignoring the negative consequences and disingenuously claiming that the process was painless, open and fair. We know full well what ordinary people now think of mass privatization.
They did not stop to consider the catastrophic consequences of decimating people's Sberbank deposits, even though it would have been perfectly simple to resolve the problem through state bonds, which could have been redeemed through a capital gains tax (or by using stakes in the country's top privatized companies). The imperious liberals could not spare a minute of their precious time, and they did not want to overtax their gray matter anyway.
In the 1990s, no one took it upon themselves to reform education, healthcare, or the housing sector; nor did anyone get around to addressing the issue of targeted support for the poorer sections of society. Yet these were and remain critical issues for the vast majority of our fellow citizens.
Russian liberals ignored social stability – the only basis for any long-term and wide-reaching set of reforms. A huge gulf separated them from the people – a gulf that they tried to fill with rosy liberal notions about the state of things and manipulative PR. Indeed, it was in the 1990s that the myth was born of the omnipotence of certain PR specialists, who were purportedly able to compensate for the absence of real policies in one area or another.
The 1995-1996 election season amply demonstrated that the Russian people had rejected their liberal rulers. As one of the major sponsors of Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign, I know just what a gargantuan effort it took to make the Russian people “vote with their heart.”
What were the country's liberal top managers thinking when they insisted that there was no alternative to the 1998 default? There was an alternative: devaluation of the ruble. Moreover, in February, or even June 1998, it would have been possible to get away with a devaluation from five rubles down to 10 to 12 rubles to the dollar. I, along with many of my colleagues, supported such a plan for averting the impending financial crisis, but, despite the considerable influence we had at the time, we were unable to get our point across – and, therefore, must share moral responsibility for the default with the irresponsible incompetents then in power.
Liberal leaders liked to call themselves kamikazes and martyrs, and at the outset it seems that this was indeed the case. By the mid-1990s, however, they had developed expensive tastes for Mercedes, dachas, villas, nightclubs and gold cards. The stoic fighters for liberalism, who were prepared to die for their ideals, were superseded by effete bohemians, who did not even attempt to conceal their indifference towards the fate of ordinary people, the silent masses. This Bohemian image, coupled with the overt cynicism, did a great deal to discredit the cause of liberalism.
Liberals told fairytales about how standards of living were getting better and better because they themselves neither knew nor really understood what life was like for the majority. Now they have to listen to, and acknowledge, these facts, and I hope they do so with a sense of shame.
Even regarding their declared values, adherents to liberalism were often dishonest or inconsistent. For example, they spoke about freedom of speech, and yet they did everything within their power to establish financial and administrative control over the media for their own ends. Often this was justified by reference to the “threat of communism,” arguing that the end justified the means. However, not a word was uttered about the underlying causes of the “red-brown plague,” i.e., the liberal leadership's ignorance of the people's real problems.
Media outlets choked on the words “the diversified economy of the future,” when, in reality, Russia remained firmly dependent on raw materials. Needless to say, the profound technological crisis experienced at this time was a direct consequence of the Soviet Union's collapse and a sharp drop in investment due to high inflation. It was the liberals' job to deal with this problem by, inter alia, recruiting strong professionals into government from the left end of the political spectrum. But, instead, they preferred to ignore the problem. Is it any surprise, then, that millions of people who make up the science/technology intelligentsia (the driving force of the democratic movement in the late 1980s) now vote for Rodina and the Communist Party?
Dismissing all assertions to the contrary, the liberals always insisted that you could do whatever you liked with the Russian people, that “in this country” everything is decided by the elite and there's no need to worry about hoi polloi. In their view, the people would swallow any old rubbish and lies like they were manna from heaven. That is why the need for “social policies,” “sharing” and the like was brushed aside and rejected with a smirk.
Well, Judgment Day finally came: In the December parliamentary elections, the Russian people bid a firm and tearless farewell to the official leaders of the country's liberal parties.
This reflected general disgust at the gaping gulf between the imperious liberals and the rest of the country.
So where was big business all this time? Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the liberal rulers. We were accomplices in their misdeeds and lies.
We never entertained any illusions about the authorities, of course, but neither did we oppose them, not wanting to jeopardize our own piece of the pie. It is laughable to hear propagandists call us “oligarchs.” An oligarchy is a small group of people who genuinely hold power. We, however, were always dependent on some mighty bureaucrat in his ultra-liberal thousand-dollar suit. And our collective visits to Yeltsin were a complete sham: We were being trotted out as the main culprits responsible for the country's woes, although we did not immediately understand this.
We had sufficient resources to question the rules of the game or, to be more precise, to question the game without rules. But through our subservience and our servile desire to give when we were asked to (and even when we were not), we nurtured official lawlessness and the “Basmanny” legal system.
We genuinely revived industries that had been laid low by the final years of the Soviet system, and we created more than 2 million highly paid jobs, all told. But we were incapable of persuading the country of our good deeds. Why? Quite simply, because the country could not forgive business for its complicity with the “party of irresponsibility,” the “party of deceit.”
Business at Large
It is a common mistake to consider liberal sections of society and the business community to be one and the same.
Business' ideology is to make money, and a liberal environment is not needed for that. The major U.S. corporations that invested billions of dollars in the Soviet Union were very keen on the Soviet regime because it guaranteed stability and a business environment free from interference by society.
Civil society more often obstructs than assists business: It stands up for workers' rights, environmental protection, the transparency of business projects and serves as a counterweight to corruption. All of these things affect the bottom line. Speaking from experience, I can say it is much easier to come to an arrangement with a handful of greedy (within reason) officials than it is to coordinate one's actions with an active network of civic institutions.
Business does not crave liberal political reforms, nor is it obsessed with freedom. On the contrary, it will always find a common language with whatever regime is in place. First and foremost, it seeks the state's protection from civil society and organized labor. That is why relations between business (particularly big business) and genuine civil society unavoidably tend towards antagonism.
In addition, business can find a home anywhere in the world, and money is not patriotic. Business sets up shop wherever there is a profit to be made and invests in those projects with the highest return. For many of our businesspeople (though certainly not all), Russia is not their homeland, but merely a free hunting ground. And their main interests and long-term strategies are tied to the West.
As far as I am concerned, Russia is my motherland. I want to live, work and die here. I want my offspring to be proud of Russia and proud of me as a small part of this country and this unique civilization. Perhaps I was too late in understanding this: I only started my involvement in philanthropy and my support for civic organizations in 2000. Although, as they say, better late than never.
That is why I decided to stop working in business, and speak not on behalf of the "business community" but for myself and on behalf of the liberal part of society and the people whom I consider my comrades-in-arms. There are among our ranks, of course, major businesspeople – the world of genuine freedom and democracy is open to all.
At the Crossroads
So what can we and what should we now be doing? I will enumerate seven priorities.
• Come up with a new strategy for interaction with the state. The state and the bureaucracy are not synonymous. The time has come for people to ask themselves what they have done for Russia. We already know what Russia has done for us since 1991.
• Learn to search for the truth in Russia, not in the West. Building a good image in the United States and Europe is very good, but it is no substitute for the respect of one's compatriots. We have to prove – to ourselves first and foremost – that we are here in Russia for the long haul. We must cease to neglect the interests of our country and people. These interests are our interests.
• Abandon futile attempts to call into question the president's legitimacy. Irrespective of whether we like Vladimir Putin or not, it is time to comprehend that the head of state is not just an individual: The president is an institution that guarantees the country's territorial integrity and stability. God forbid that we should live to see the day when this institution collapses - Russia will not withstand another February 1917. History teaches us that a bad regime is still better than no regime.
• Stop lying to ourselves and to society. We are already grown up enough to tell the truth. I hold Irina Khakamada in high regard, but, unlike my partner, Leonid Nevzlin, I refused to sponsor her presidential campaign because I saw in her campaign disturbing outlines of falsehood. For example, no matter what one's attitude to Putin may be, it is wrong and unfair to accuse him with the Nord Ost tragedy.
• Leave the cosmopolitan worldview behind and acknowledging that the liberal project can only work in the context of national interests.
• Legitimize privatization. We must accept that 90 percent of the population considers the results of privatization to be unjust, and its beneficiaries not to be legitimate owners. While this situation prevails, there will always be forces – political, bureaucratic or even terrorist – attempting to encroach on private property. In order to rehabilitate privatization in the eyes of the nation, big business will have to be forced to share with the people – probably by reforming the taxation system for mineral resources and, perhaps, through other measures which big business will not find very agreeable. It is better to start the process, influence and control it, than to put up futile resistance and fall victim to the inevitable. The authorities have no great desire to legitimize privatization, since they prefer to keep us on tenterhooks. But we need this, as do our children, who will have to live in this country and walk the streets without large security details.
• Invest capital and brains in the creation of new social institutions, unsullied by the lies of the past. We need to create real civic institutions, not ones that we treat as playthings. We must attract conscientious and talented people who will form the core of the new Russian elite. Russia's worst problem today is the brain drain, for the country's competitiveness in the 21st century will depend more on its intellectual capital than on its diminishing reserves of natural resources. Brains will always congregate where they receive the right sort of nourishment: in other words, civil society.
To change the country, we must change ourselves. In order to persuade Russia of the necessity and inevitability of a liberal path of development, we must overcome the complexes and phobias of the past decade, as well as the disagreeable history of Russian liberalism. We must believe in freedom in order to return it to our country.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of Yukos, is currently in detention awaiting trial. This translation of the comment ran on March 31 and April 1 in The Moscow Times. The full original version of this comment first appeared in the March 31 edition of Vedomosti.
There can be little doubt that Russian liberalism is currently in the midst of a crisis.