Subject: [News] Solzhenitsyn is coming

From: Cyrill A. Buketov <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 94 23:29:00 GMT

From: kaskor (Cyrill A. Buketov)
Subject: Solzhenitsyn is coming

/* ����ᠭ� 11:28 pm  Jun  9, 1994 [email-masked] � glas:labr.cis */
/* ---------- "Solzhenitsyn is coming" ---------- */
	THE NEW GULAG
	By Boris Kagarlitsky

        Alexander Solzhenitsyn is finally coming home, and he is wise
to arrive in the spring. It was a bitter winter in Russia. Near
Murmansk, market reforms meant local authorities had no funds for
heating. Left to freeze, people were forced to return to old barracks
from Stalin's Gulag; these at least were equipped with stoves.
        Just as Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" unveiled
Soviet oppression to the world, for many Russians last winter saw a
retreat to the Gulag that exposed the oppressive nature of economic
reform in the country today. People were back in the Gulag not
because of secret police or guard dogs, but because of the "free
market."
        After two years of reform, Russia has been driven back whole
decades. Birth rates are plummeting while death rates are rising.
Real wages for most people have fallen to 1950s levels. More than
half of industrial production has been lost, and the technological
level of industry has also fallen sharply. Only recently a child
washing car windshields on the streets symbolized the new
entrepreneurship; now it portends a society incapable of offering
meaningful work to the next generation.
        This is not modernization or reform, but regression.
        While Russian authorities and the International Monetary Fund
have touted privatization as an economic cure-all, this, too, is a
joke. Instead of creating a competitive market, privatization has
given birth to a system of uncontrolled monopolies, exploiting
consumers and to a considerable degree controlling government. In
the privatized sector labor productivity is declining, losses are
increasing, competitiveness is falling, and foreign markets are being
lost. "Encouraging privatization" is a major source of the colossal
budget deficit now causing rapid inflation.
        Theft of state property and the collapse of the
constitutional order have undermined respect for the law. Corruption
has become a part of daily life, and crime is growing at catastrophic
rates.
        Clinging tightly to power, a new elite allows no possibility
of democratic change. President Boris Yeltsin's constitution has not
only strengthened the extraordinary concentration of power in his
hands, but has also rendered practically impossible any attempt at
further reform or democratization.
        Instead of the promised growth of the middle class--the
supposed basis for development and prosperity--we see a catastrophic
polarization of our society. In 1993, sales of the most expensive and
prestigious models of Western cars in Moscow alone exceeded all the
sales in Western Europe. Lacking confidence in the Russian economy,
the new rich deposit their funds in foreign banks. The press
estimates $20 billion per year is exported legally, and much more
leaves illegally. Western financial aid often ends up in Swiss bank
accounts.
        The great majority of Russians regard the current regime with
unconcealed hatred; the words "economic reform" and "market economy"
have the force of obscenities. Young people are now flocking to
opposition movements, from moderate left to extremist right, and many
entrepreneurs will even support the Communist Party, simply in the
hope of getting rid of Yeltsin.
        The West does not understand the scale of the approaching
crisis. What Western "experts" call enemies of democracy now include
the majority of the country's population, its past and present
parliaments, a significant part of its nascent independent press, and
many independents--including at least half of Soviet-era dissidents.
        Russia will neither be part of the West, nor a banana
republic. Our problems simply cannot be cured with International
Monetary Fund prescriptions for entrepreneurship. Democratic
development is only possible on the basis of respect, and through
taking into account established socio-economic structures,
accumulated experience, and the existing culture.
        There are things in Russia's past--including its Soviet past-
-of which we are entitled to feel proud. Forcing Russia into a
Western mold will ultimately turn out to the disadvantage of the
West. While decades of Cold War created an enthusiastic Soviet
interest in everything Western, three years of Western support for
the Russian reforms has brought about the rise of anti-Western
feelings. Russia's next government, whatever its make-up, will be
forced to undertake a sharp change of course, including a change in
the character of Russian-American relations.
        American policy in Russia is at an impasse from which it will
not easily escape. One Russian journalist has noted that while U.S.
politicians are divided over whether Russia should be helped or
annihilated, both of these groups advocate the same policies. If the
United States is to avoid a dangerous turn in its relationship with
Russia, it must soon realize that economic "reform" is leading
Russians back to the Gulag.