Back Story Newsletter
Good morning,
Russia
This week as the news broke former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had died, I thought for a moment the timing of his death my awaken something inside Russia.
Gorbachev brought about reforms and freedoms and lifted the Iron curtain enabling Russians to pursue private enterprise, to travel to Europe and be free, and his shining moment no doubt was a decision not to use force to keep Soviet States like Ukraine from declaring independence.
Not to be forgotten was ‘Gorby’s’ agreements to eliminate tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. He made our world safer.
But Gorbachev was not popular with many Russians for ushering in a period of chaos too. In the years that followed the end of the Soviet Union Russia was crushed by the slow move to a market economy, and some say it was worse than America’s Great Depression.
Inflation soared 2000 per cent. People who had always been given a car or apartment or guaranteed food stuffs were no longer paid and that included pensions. No wonder older Russian’s hated the new Russia as the younger generation struggled to import western goods and make their way in a completely new economy.
Crime was rampant. When I went to Russia in 1995 to cover a Yeltsin-Clinton summit I was warned the mafia ran the streets. Every business had to have a ‘Krysha’ the Russian word for roof. As a western friend who ran a restaurant in St. Petersburg explained “we pay 30% of our profits to the mafia, and if you don’t pay your dead or they burn your business to the ground”.
As Putin came to power and empowered the KGB/FSB again, some of the street crime lessened, but my friends restaurant ‘Krysha’ simply shifted from a local mafia gang, to the FSB which demanded its 30%.
Putin’s kleptocracy was no better than the mafia, and in fact Putin came from St. Petes and had direct connections to those same criminal organizations.
Those tough years before oil prices soared, resulted in many Russian’s hating democracy. It’s hard for westerners to digest it, but polling showed Russian’s repeatedly drew a parallel between lawlessness and chaos of the 90’s, and democratic freedoms.
Putin’s authoritarian, pretend elections, were judged less on their legitimacy and more on the stability Russians thought he brought to the nation.
I interviewed Gorbachev for NBC News early after Putin came to power, and he warned of a roll back in press freedoms and the dangers of a creep in the vertical power structures. In other words Putin’s Kremlin rule that was taking back what Gorby had given Russians, freedom and a democratic voice.
But Gorbachev’s death hasn’t awakened a mass movement to oust Putin and demands for reinstatement of Russia’s constitution. Not yet. Because inside Russia Gorbachev is still remembered as someone who gave freedom but brought chaos.
Putin’s unwritten contract with the Russian people has always been stability and some kind of prosperity. Suddenly his reckless invasion of Ukraine has threatened all of that.
The plunging revenues from oil and gas, the spikes in prices of foreign goods, (many of them no longer available), and the deaths of thousands of Russian’s fed into the brutal front line of the Ukraine war will I think, awaken a Russia that is more unstable than we have ever seen.
Putin who is largely isolated now and out of touch with his own country, may find himself far less popular than Gorbachev was.
At least Gorbachev’s economic chaos allowed the nation to breath. He invented Glasnost - a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, and the inadmissibility of hushing up problems.
Economic chaos is back in Russia minus Glasnost. We are in un-chartered waters.
The war in Ukraine is going badly. Rumours of Russian troops demoralized and shell shocked abandoning dug in positions near Kherson abound.
Ukrainian advances will soon put Crimea itself in the line of fire.
Putin’s is losing and the cost to Russia is mounting.
Gorbachev was right. The danger of an authoritarian regime in Russia would have a price and the bill is coming due.
Dana Lewis