Jerusalem Post - 07.29.2003

 

 

 

The Jerusalem Post/David Johnson's List

Is Russia on the brink of an anti-Semitic wave?

BY ARIK ELMAN

Another Russian businessman with a Jewish-sounding name has skirmished with the former KGB cadres of the Russian Federation security establishment. This time it is Russia's wealthiest man and head of the Yukos oil corporation, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Do Khodorkovsky's troubles - and before him those of Vladimir Goussinsky and Boris Berezovsky - raise the frightening prospect of a renewal of state-sponsored anti- Semitism? That is a tempting - but mistaken - way to analyze the latest Kremlin intrigues. 

But how else to understand the clash, after a long truce, between big oligarchic business empires and President Vladimir Putin's government? 

Perhaps the best explanation is to recall that parliamentary elections in Russia are to be held in December. And while Putin's future is more or less secure his cohorts in the Duma are feeling the heat.

Since its inception, Putin's government has pushed through a series of liberal economic reforms that, while boosting the economy, have caused serious pain to the poor. For instance, the ridiculously minimal maintenance payments for state-provided housing have been exponentially increased.

Despite promising reforms there are still many unfortunate and angry people in today's Russia. The Kremlin rightly fears the possibility of a populist backlash.

The poor and disenfranchised just might take revenge on the comfortable majority Putin enjoys, leaving him in a Boris Yeltsin-like position vis-ý-vis the Duma, which is packed with populists, Communists and ultra-liberals out of touch with 99 percent of the country.

This type of populist backlash has happened twice in recent Russian history. First when tank shells were lobbed at parliament in 1993 - two years after fall of the Soviet Union, and the second time, in 1998, when Yeltsin's opponents controlled the Duma and paralyzed his ability to push through an economic program. That's when the government collapsed, sinking the country deep into economic crisis.

Putin and his associates are determined to avoid a repetition, rightly believing that another bout of anarchy will destroy the momentum toward rehabilitating state authority. 

This is the context of the Kremlin's efforts to establish a managed democracy in which citizens enjoy personal freedoms (especially in business) and free elections, but where political options are controlled from above. This ensures that dangerous extremes are suppressed and criticism of the government doesn't cross the threshold of "incitement."

One can argue that this is merely a rationalization of Putin's desire to ensure that he and the security establishment, whose product he is, hold power indefinitely. Yet it is worth noting that despite the persecution and banishment of Goussinsky and Berezovsky and the tightening of controls over television broadcasting, press freedom in general remains intact. For instance, one can log on to Russian web sites and sample a wide range of criticism against the authorities in general and Putin in particular.

Nevertheless, it is clear that while letting the small fish swim freely, the Kremlin is determined to enforce conformism on the biggest economic and political players: the oligarchs. If Russia's most successful entrepreneurs can be made to toe the line, developing grassroots opposition will lack both the funds and necessary coordination to mount a significant political challenge to the Kremlin.

Indeed, the Kremlin is determined to wean big business off politics. In Khodorkovsky's case, the Yukos chief antagonized the Kremlin twice. Not only did he declare his support for various opposition groups, he also engaged in oil dealings with the US - which amounts to a challenge on the international level.

The clumsy effort by Russian prosecutors to construct a legitimate legal case against Yukos - the biggest taxpayer in the country - has turned the whole exercise into yet another costly farce. Obviously, foreign investors should be alarmed by a legal system so easily manipulated.

The damage is so clear that Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov publicly protested "the whole unfortunate development."

Three years into Putin's presidency the situation in Russia is far from normal, but we in Israel would be making a crucial mistake if, as in the Chinese proverb, we search for the black cat of anti-Semitism in a dark room of intrigue and power plays.

Khodorkovsky isn't harassed because he's Jewish but because he threatens the stability of the current Russian government. And he threatens that stability because of the possibility of unleashing a populist backlash.

In fact, the biggest problem for Khodorkovsky - just as it was for Goussinsky and Berezovsky before him - isn't Kremlin pressure from above but Russian public opinion from below. Bruised and abused during the years of rapid privatization, ordinary Russians simply do not accept that the enormous wealth accumulated by oligarchs came to them through fair play and hard work.

Far from looking up to the oligarchs as modernizers, the Russian public is suspicious of their politics. The Jewish background of many of the oligarchs is undoubtedly a contributing factor to this mind-set, but it is far from being a decisive one.

Regardless of the beating that liberal ideals fostered by media outlets controlled by the oligarchs are taking, the Kremlin does not need to stir up anti-Semitic feeling to defeat the oligarchs. 

While Putin presents himself as the leader of all Russians with no special interests except the national one, oligarchs acting in the political arena are perceived - and presented to the public - as trying to appropriate - "privatize" - a chunk of political power in order to advance their own interests.

And since Russians simply do not trust big business to act in the interests of the country, they will remain indifferent to the oligarchs' troubles.

The best way Israel can make sure Jews don't become the issue is not to meddle in the murky waters of Russian politics. Instead Israel should pressure Moscow to act decisively against anti-Semitic incidents directed at ordinary Russian Jews throughout the country. Here, unfortunately, there's a lot of real work to be done.