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1986
with Gorbachev through to the collapse of the Soviet Union and
what many Russians see as the early romantic years of Yeltsin:
1991, '92, even '93. But as it turned out that period was really
coming to an end by the time I got there.
Q. So after these so-called "romantic years," what would you call
the next chapter?
A. The chapter that I lived through was the sad, sober realizations
of middle age. And it was that kind of a period the whole country,
particularly the government went through. There was a realization
that you couldn't always be clean and pure, and in some cases
compromise was necessary. Cases of corruption began to creep in:
both materially and in terms of losing a vision and just governing
for the sake of being in power.
Q.
What shocked you most in your time there?
A. The biggest thing that shocked me was the loans- for-shares
privatization. I still have trouble believing it happened. And
when I go back over my notes I see that no one took it seriously.
Economists, serious Russia analysts said, "It's incredibly stupid,
but don't worry, because they'll never do it, it's too bizarre."
And it really was a sin of commission. So many things in Russia
are sins of omission, or terrible birthmarks of the Soviet or
the tsarist period. But this was something that they actually
did. The second thing that I find shocking still is the war in
Chechnya. You could argue that, given the amount of bloodshed
that could have attended the collapse of the Soviet Union, it
hasn't been that bad — and that's probably true. It's not like
the former Yugoslavia, and it could have been. Still, there's
the sheer brutality that we've seen the Russian army exhibiting
in Chechnya and even more shocking is the popular support that
it has.
Q. What did you learn on your last trip to Moscow earlier this
year?
A. A lot of people felt the crash of 1998 was going to be
a real watershed in Russia, that it was going to wipe out lot
of the old players, and that [the powerful businessmen known as]
the oligarchs would be destroyed because their empires would be.
That the politicians would be destroyed because they had brought
this terrible ruin on the country. And what actually seems to
have happened is that most of the old players and the old structures
are still there. The oligarchs were still around, and richer than
they ever have been, because all of them are natural resource
barons and they make their money from oil or nickel, so they're
doing really well. And all the evidence is that their connections
to the government are still there. I think there is a hope that
there can be a quick fix in Russia, and a lot of people are hoping
that Putin will be the man to implement it. There is a slight
sense that he will be a combination iron reformer, tsar-liberator
figure, and that's a very seductive fantasy, if not a realistic
one. What one official at a Western financial institution told
me was Putin had said to them, "Don't worry, I'm going to move
against the vested interests, but I'm going to have to do it one
by one, because I can't tackle them all at once." Which sounds
fine and reasonable, but in reality, if he starts to do that,
I think rather than it being the moment he creates democracy,
it will be the moment when he gets rid of one set of cronies and
replaces them with another. I think when you try to implement
a reform in an arbitrary fashion, very often the system you create
is arbitrary.
Interview
reprinted with permission. Copyright Random House Canada.
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