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Russia's democracy: imperfect, but still important to America

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published February 27, 2005

During their famous "kitchen debate" in 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev told Vice President Richard Nixon that communism would soon propel the Soviet Union ahead of the United States.

"As we pass you by," Khrushchev taunted, "we'll wave "Hi' to you."

Khrushchev, of course, was wrong. Just 32 years later the Soviet Union collapsed, taking with it the world's most ambitious experiment in communism. Today, Russia is capitalistic and democratic, though not nearly as much as critics would like.

Since Vladimir Putin was elected president in 2000, the Russian government has tightened its grip on the media, abolished some elected positions and seized control of the assets of the giant Yukos oil company. The latter move was to correct what Putin calls a period of "cowboy capitalism" in the 1990s, when state-owned companies were sold off too cheaply, turning the new owners into multimillionaires.

At their meeting in Slovakia last week, President Bush chided his Russian counterpart for backsliding on democracy and the rule of law. But analysts say that other than talking tough, there is little the West can do to pressure Putin.

"We have virtually no leverage over Russia at this point and that in part is because of conscious policies by the Putin administration to reduce the points of leverage," says Clifford Gaddy, a Russian analyst at the Brookings Institution.

Putin took office just as soaring oil prices revived Russia's doddering economy. Though his timing was fortuitous, he shrewdly used oil revenues and stepped-up taxes to pay off Russia's debt to the International Monetary Fund.

"Our main leverage during the '90s was Russia's dire fiscal situation," Gaddy says. "The standard line was, "If you don't behave, you don't get the next chunk of IMF loans.' This, of course, was humiliating for Russia and it's a matter now of national pride that the leash has been cut off."

America's "moral authority" over Russia has eroded in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the violence in Fallujah and even the 2000 presidential election debacle. Russians point to those lapses when they are criticized for meddling in Ukraine's elections or for using excessive force in the rebellious province of Chechnya.

"Anything the United States can criticize the Russians for," Gaddy says, "the Russians have an equally long list to throw back at the United States."

Another expert says the one tie inextricably linking Bush and Putin is the war on terror. Putin has used it to justify crackdowns in Chechnya, while Bush realizes Putin is a loyal ally in an increasingly controversial endeavor.

"Putin is the best option for Bush, and Bush knows this," says Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute for Globalization Studies in Moscow.

At home, though, Bush is under pressure from an unusually wide range of sources to take a hard line on Russia.

Some Republicans still distrust the country that not so long ago was a competing superpower. Democrats say the president can't credibly press his global campaign for democracy if he turns a blind eye toward Russia. And business leaders worry about the safeguards to private property rights. Then there's Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident who enormously impressed the president with his best-selling book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.

"In a sense, Bush is a man with a split personality," Gaddy says. "On one side, "Why in the world create problems with Russia when I have enough problems already?' - that's the pragmatic side. On the ideological side, he is driven by this concern for democracy and the fact there is a serious case to be made that Russia is not living up to the ideals."

Although Russia has a form of democracy now, the question is whether a country with a long history of authoritarian rule can sustain it. In the background are what Gaddy calls some "very nasty" anti-Western, nationalistic forces pressuring Putin to be even more heavy-handed than he has so far.

"There really are threats to democracy in Russia," Gaddy says, "and what we're seeing right now from the Putin administration is by no means the worst outcome possible."

[Last modified February 27, 2005, 00:14:06]