SOVIET HISTORY LESSONS

This metaphor, suggested by one of the ideologues of the current KGB regime, contrary to his intentions, extremely accurately describes how things have been going in this country for the past decade. Yes, Russia got snagged by the KGB hook and now hangs on it, as if on a medieval rack, tortured and robbed by its executioners / rulers. No matter how much the KGB ideologists and their political engineers are now trying to reinterpret what had happened, the facts are undeniable:  the power in this country has been utterly and completely usurped by the KGB, who, akin to the Bourbons of the Restoration period, have not understood or learned anything. Having declared the collapse of the USSR a catastrophe, they are now systematically and persistently restoring the Soviet regime.

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Democratic institutions are being systematically destroyed, elections are becoming a formality, the opposition has no place in politics, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and demonstrations are being suppressed by police practices.

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The legal basis of Russian statehood — the sovereignty of the subjects of the Federation — has been violated.

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In order to assert the power of the KGB, a small Caucasian nation is being destroyed, which led to war spreading across the entire North Caucasus. Conceived by the KGB as a "small and victorious war," and as a means to usurp power in Russia, it became a festering wound on the body of the country.

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The former "sphere of Soviet influence" is being restored by means of threats and blackmail, or even direct interference in the internal affairs of neighboring states. The country's oil and gas wealth is being used as a strategic weapon in the struggle for world domination, instead of serving as a source of people's well-being.

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A notion of "hostile encirclement" reappeared again, a wish to impose an arms race on the West, which once before resulted in the bankruptcy of our country. Xenophobia and spy hysteria are being persistently promoted, ultra-nationalist and simply fascist movements are being encouraged.

 

Political prisoners start to exist again, which for Russia, with its history, is tantamount to a symptom of a fatal disease. Asthmatic Mikhail Trepashkin is suffocating in his cell. The crippled Boris Stomakhin was sent to the camp by prisoner transport. A number of scientists were convicted, whose entire fault consists of their contacts with their Western colleagues. Defiant businessmen were sentenced to hard labor.

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Political assassinations have become the norm.

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Military / patriotic education is returning to schools. Once again, Russian history is being rewritten, and it has been ordered to remove any mention of the crimes of the Soviet regime, while the butcher of our people, who had killed tens of millions of our compatriots, is being called a "wise leader."

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The economy, carved up by the KGB mafias, is deprived of the opportunity to develop. In fact, the most important industries have been renationalized. Small and medium-size businesses are stifled by extortions.

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Today, when any Russian citizen at any time can be arbitrarily persecuted, become a victim of a frame-up, or even end up in a psychiatric hospital for no medical reason, when even according to surveys, up to 4 percent of citizens are tortured or ill-treated by law enforcement agencies each year, and the courts have ceased to fulfill their function of impartial and objective guardians of the rule of law, a normal political process has become simply impossible. Lawlessness holds sway over the country on such a scale that no one can feel safe. As a result, hundreds of thousands of our compatriots annually "vote with their feet" — they flee the country in search of a more decent life.

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In Russia again there is no government, but there is Power. There are no citizens, but there are subjects. Public life as such has ended, and what is left are squabbles between the various clans of the KGB. In fact, they even do not need these these subjects too much. Well, perhaps 15-20 million to service the oil and gas pipes, as well as their own needs. As for the rest — the sooner they die, the better for the authorities. That way there would be less problems.

 

These are the results of the eight years of the rule of the KGB corporation. Is this the "stability" the Kremlin is so proud of? It is not hard to guess what will happen to it as soon as oil prices fall — the country will split into dozens of fragments.

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Is this the "Great Power" that we are all supposed to be proud of? "The world is afraid of us again!" — the Kremlin's political engineers happily report. But everyone is also afraid of those who have lost their mind, so why rejoice?

 

These results were quite predictable 15 years ago (at least I have been predicting them since 1993). Roughly speaking, politics is like war: if one has no courage (or resources) to attack, then retreat is inevitable. I spent many hours in 1991 persuading the Yeltsin administration to organize a trial of the communist regime, preferably under the Nuremberg Statutes. Well, if not a trial (they didn’t like the idea of ​​a trial), then at least an international commission of historians, but to do this openly, with TV cameras present, and with revelations of all the crimes of the regime. I have managed to persuade everyone (even Bakatin, the then head of the KGB), but Yeltsin resisted. Either he was afraid for his own position (after all, he was a former candidate for membership in the Politburo), or he really did not want to "rock the boat" (as he told his assistants), but the initiative was blocked. And I left, knowing full well that the restoration of the Soviet regime was imminent. A year later, Yeltsin was already on the defensive (and I even went to help him in the Constitutional Court), and after a couple of years he surrendered everything — both his team and his policy. I stopped visiting Russia — I didn't have the stomach to witness this disgrace. And soon they blocked my entry into the country, they stopped issuing me visas. After 1993, he was no longer the master of his own house, becoming a hostage of the "siloviks" (security chiefs), and I had no business being there. The restoration became inevitable.

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However, I am far from blaming Yeltsin alone. After all, the Russian society at the time sharply opposed such a trial, and the West in every possible way blocked our efforts, labeling them "a witch hunt." Well, here the witches came to life, now they hunt us. And the West won’t know what hit it.

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Without a doubt, had we begun then, in 1991, the process of decommunization, had carried out our own Nuremberg, the KGB could not have recovered so quickly and seized power. Indeed, in order to catch the country by its hook, they put in time and perseverance to drill several myths into the people's minds, counting on the fact that the people had no understanding of how the communist system used to work.

 

Myth number one: the democrats destroyed the Soviet Union and everyone's circumstances deteriorated.

 

This one phrase contains so many lies that several volumes would not be enough to dispel this myth. First, the Soviet Union collapsed on its own, under the weight of its own stupidity. One should be surprised at how long it managed to exist with its idiotic "construction of communism," its State Planning Committee, its socialist competitions, collective farms and political studies. It was doomed from the start, since it had originally been created not as a normal state, but as a springboard for the forthcoming world revolution. And as soon as it became clear that this revolution was not coming, the Soviet Union was doomed to die. Lenin understood this and urgently introduced NEP (New Economic Policy).

 

Stalin tried to force the world revolution, bringing it to Europe on the bayonets of the Red Army. All subsequent rulers desperately tried to somehow save this unviable system through reforms. Only the last of them — Gorbachev — realized that the system was unreformable, and even then only at the end of his rule. Nevertheless, they all continued to wage their "class war" on the "world of capital" until the very end, which in the post-war years was expressed, on the one hand, in the arms race, on the other, in the creation and maintenance of thugs throughout the world ("liberation movements"). Both required colossal spending. Add to this the "cost of running the empire" — that is, maintenance of those same non-viable "socialist countries" that the Soviet Union had spawned all over the world, and it becomes clear that the collapse was inevitable. Simply put, the USSR went bankrupt, broke down, because its economic base was too small for its global ambitions.

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Gorbachev's perestroika only accelerated the collapse, but it was not its cause, no matter what legends are now being composed about his "betrayal". It is all the more absurd to attribute this event to the evil will of the so-called "democrats", that is, the Yeltsin administration. Yes, the country was going through a deep crisis, everyone's circumstances took a turn for the worse. But why blame people who just came to power, and not those who have been leading the country into this crisis for 73 years? The Democrats only inherited a country practically destroyed by the communist rule. They did not destroy 40 million of their compatriots, the cream of the crop of Russian society. They did not exterminate 10 million of the best peasants, they did not invent the collective farms. They were not the ones who unleashed the Second World War with its gigantic destruction. They did not drain their country in the name of the "world revolution," they did not invent the arms race. Is it their fault that 73 years of Marxism-Leninism brought the Russian peasants to indiscriminate drunkenness, thievery, made them lose a taste for work?

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Yes, they dissolved the USSR, and it was the right thing to do. Look, for 8 years now Russia has been unable to cope with Chechnya, which cannot be discerned clearly on a map. And what would we do if there were 15 such Chechnyas, some of them the size of Ukraine or Kazakhstan? A simple fact should be reocognized: in 1991 the empire had already collapsed, and the Belovezha Accords only legalized this fact.

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The second myth, which follows from the first: Russia is not suited to democracy. Here, we tried it, and see what happened…

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This is simply not true, as democracy hasn't been tried in Russia yet. There have been mere attempts -- timid and inconsistent. And the democrats have not yet been in power. Those who were called democrats in the early 1990s were almost exclusively ex-communists. True, they were already disillusioned with communism, and I believe quite sincerely so, but this has not yet made them democrats. Moreover, they never understood anything about the market economy. Tell me, how, for example, Yegor Gaidar, who had spent his entire career at "The Communist" magazine and the economy department of the "Pravda" newspaper, suddenly turned out to be a market economist and a democrat? I am prepared to believe that he had read some books about the market economy (in secret from his Party bosses), but he never lived in a country with a market economy and had no idea how it works. Hence his ugly "market reforms," his voucher "privatization," which degenerated into a simple scam. As a result, in just two years, such "democrats" have managed to discredit what we have been fighting for for 30 years.

 

In fairness, we should recalled that they were not free in their actions. The then legislative body — the Supreme Soviet — controlled by the communists, blocked almost all their undertakings, and therefore has to share with them responsibility for what happened in equal measure. However, no one wants to remember this. So the legend about bad democrats who destroyed the country remains alive in Russia.

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Finally, this experiment lasted only a couple of years. This is a mystery: communism reigned in our country for 73 years, and a very controversial experiment with democracy lasted for only two years, but we have now firmly decided that we are not suited to democracy, while somehow not being able to decide anything about communism.

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Myth number three: It's the democrats' fault that Russia has collapsed into an abyss and would have perished there, if not for the honest, courageous people, statesmen who their entire lives selflessly serving the Motherland, i.e. the KGB men, who managed to save the country teetering on the brink of destruction.

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It would seem that in Russia — where there is hardly a family where someone had not suffered at the hands of the state security — such a statement should have made people laugh in unison, or should have even caused an explosion of indignation. The KGB and their political engineers are lying: they did not serve the Motherland — they served the Party. And the KGB was created, as Lenin put it, to serve as an "armed detachment of the Party." And the task was set to them to protect the Party from the people, to maintain the Party's power over them. They were the ones who tortured and shot millions of our compatriots on the orders of the Party. They also dispossessed them, drove the peasants into collective farms and into the GULAGs. Even in comparatively "vegetarian" times — after Stalin's death — what was the secret police busy doing?

 

Jews were being imprisoned for wanting to leave for Israel, and the Volga Germans were being imprisoned for wanting to leave for Germany. The believers were being imprisoned for gathering for prayers, and the intelligentsia for distributing Samizdat. What national interests did all this serve?

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Unfortunately, the cheap KGB propaganda film "The Seventeen Moments of Spring" made a strong impression on many people. But we, who live in the West, know perfectly well the character of the Soviet spies stationed abroad who, while operating under protection and risking nothing at all, were busy cashing in on buying and selling vodka, caviar and cigarettes, and reporting the contents of the local newspapers to their "Center."

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So it should be noted that the KGB corporation, posing as the "saviors of Russia," was actually the one that contributed to the country’s collapse in its capacity of the watchdogs of the Soviet regime more than anyone else. The only time they failed to fulfill their function was in August 1991. None of them dared to risk their own skin for the sake of saving the rotten communist regime. They didn't even intercede for Felix. (The statue monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky who led the first two Soviet state-security organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU, establishing a secret police for the post-revolutionary Soviet regime — translator).

 

Now their political engineers are trying to present the case as if Russia "perished" in the 1990s without any participation on the part of the KGB, but after year 2000 it "reawakened" under their wise leadership. In reality, throughout the 1990s, the KGB corporation has been preparing to seize power, promoting its people into the administration, into the Duma, and into big business, and even into organized crime. Was it not them who organized the first gangs which racketeered businessmen so that the latter would then turn to them for "protection"? Was it not them who sabotaged the democratic reforms  in the Supreme Soviet, and later in the Parliament? Were it not their proteges who became the very "oligarchs" whom they later wiped out? Was it not them who provoked both wars in Chechnya in order to become much-in-demand?

 

In a word, paraphrasing Lenin's words, they supported Russia when it was falling, like a rope supports a hanged man. Let's call things by their names directly: the KGB corporation clandestinely prepared and carried out the coup d'etat. And having come to power, they returned to their traditional occupation: detaining and to restraining. They regard the restoration of the Soviet regime, under which they lived so well, as a blessing for this country. Not realizing that the collapse of the Soviet system was inevitable, they now try to imitate it, both inside the country's borders and outside. It is not difficult to predict that they will end up the same way as their predecessors — they will lead the country to disaster, and they themselves will again escape responsibility.

 

So, if the country needs saving, it is precisely from the KGB hook.

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From all of the above it follows that Russia needs to change its entire political system. Everything that the KGB has done over the past eight years needs to be redone or canceled. The constitutional coup carried out by them must be declared a state crime, and those guilty of organizing and carrying it out must be brought to justice.

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It is necessary to investigate all the crimes of the Soviet regime and its heirs — first of all, the crimes of the leadership of the Communist Party and the KGB / FSB -- on the basis of the Nuremberg Statutes. All crimes of the regime must be revealed and made public.

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At the same time, legal guarantees must be developed against the possibility of restoring the old regime or its elements. The most important of these should be the lustration law, which prohibits former members of criminal organizations from holding government and elective office. Without this, it is impossible to move on to the next step — the establishment of democracy and a market economy — without fear of sabotage.

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Unfortunately, in the 1990s, no one explained to the people of this country that neither one nor the other could be created without radical revision of the foundations of relations between people and relations between organizations, both private and public.

 

Speaking about the Germans, Winston Churchill once said, "The Germans are always either at your feet or at your throat." (This is why a stable democracy has not been established in Germany for so long). Due to our difficult history, something similar happened to us too. As they joked in Soviet times, "When you are the boss, I am a sh**, but when I am the boss, you are a sh**." Translating this saying into civilized language, we do not have a habit of relating to each other as partners. This became especially clear during the eight years of the KGB rule — due to the particular nature of their profession — and led to the destruction of the legal basis of the Russian statehood. There was no need to abolish the election of governors — on the contrary, it is necessary to actively develop local self-government, without which neither democracy nor statehood is possible. A totalitarian state is built from top to bottom and therefore eventually falls apart; the democratic is built from the foundation, and because of this it can exist and develop in a sustained way. In a totalitarian state, the "top" controls the "bottom"; in a democratic state "lower classes" control the "upper classes," and control over power always remains in the hands of society.

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The current "electoral system" in Russia is a mockery of elections and a mockery over voters. Elections should be held on the basis of a majoritarian system (in single-seat constituencies). An elected representative should represent his voters and be accountable to them, and not to the party that nominated him. Parties can and should play their role in the life of society and parliament, in accordance with the laws on freedom of association. However, in elections, party representatives should not have privileges over independent candidates.

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In addition, the notorious "vertical of power" is only breeding more and more corruption, which there was enough of without it. Naturally, the more officials there are, and the more officials have power, the more corruption we are staring to have. It is absolutely impossible to fight it in the conditions of today's "vertical" Russia. Administrative measures to combat corruption have always been the least effective, since they leave the the bureaucracy to combat itself. This is especially impossible under the conditions when free press is suppressed, which is the most effective means of fighting corruption. Today, any journalist who has exposed corruption can go to jail on trumped-up charges, to an insane asylum, or even just get shot.

 

Therefore, the first measures to combat corruption should be precisely the destruction of the "vertical of power," a sharp reduction in bureaucracy, a revision of the existing legislation in order to reduce the role of an official in the daily lives of citizens and, if possible, a revision of laws which require all kinds of permits to be obtained from the officials. All this, together with the revival of the freedom of the press, will radically reduce corruption in this country.

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In democratic countries conservative parties often campaign under the slogan "law and order." Over the past decades, we have developed a strange notion that one is incompatible with the other. So what there is no observance of the law under the KGB regime, we are told, but order has finally been established. It's time to understand that one is impossible without the other.

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The so-called law enforcement agencies of today's Russia need more than reforms. It is the cops and the KGB who are not so much tools as the culprits of tyranny, arbitrariness, and crime. Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the modern "law enforcement" system must be completely eliminated and replaced with a new one.

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The foundation of the new system should be the municipal police, led by democratically elected chiefs. These chiefs should be accountable only to their constituents and interact only with local authorities and courts. Intervention by the executive brach in police affairs should be strictly limited.

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However, the activities of the police itself must be carried out in strict accordance with legal norms. We need the most reliable guarantees against corruption, arbitrariness and abuse. It is better to let an offender evade punishment than to let a cop make travesty of the rule of law.

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The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and other security services must be completely disbanded. If necessary, special police services at regional and federal levels can be created, on a new basis and with strictly limited powers. But, like the entire state system, police structures should be built "from the bottom up," not "from top to bottom." The heads of regional and federal police services must be elected. All these services should remain as independent as possible from the executive branch.

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Naturally, the reform of law enforcement agencies should go hand in hand with judicial reform. The full independence of the judiciary must be ensured and its powers expanded. The judiciary needs to restore the independence of judges, the election of justices of the peace, and a much wider use of the jury in trials.

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It is necessary to expand the authority of the Human Rights Commissioners, as well as other public institutions which supervise and administer the rule of law.

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The slave-owning principle of army drafting (universal conscription) should be abolished. The size of the army must be radically reduced, become professional, and should be formed on a contract basis.

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Russia's economic prosperity, organized by the frugal KGB government, is a myth. The point here is not the KGB, but in the extremely favorable situation on the world market for oil and gas exports. For the first time in many centuries, Russia became lucky. And unfortunately it so happened that our luck fell on the period of the KGB rule. It will be a tragedy if they again, as in the days of the Soviet Union, will spend this unexpected wealth on an arms race and other international adventures. Instead, oil profits should be invested more widely in the creation of infrastructures, in the reform of the economy, the army, the law enforcement system, and the courts. But no: the KGB will flatter its own sore ego, butting with America, while highways and roads — just like in the 19th century — are widely missing, and in some places the electricity is missing too. 

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The current rulers are sitting on hundreds of billions of their "stabilization fund" (which for some reason they keep abroad). And what exactly are they stabilizing by this, besides their pride? Even the ruble has not yet become convertible. Instead, they carried out an expensive PR campaign to "improve the image of the ruble," banning the entire country from mentioning any foreign currency. At this point this beings to resemble some kind of voodoo economy.

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It is unacceptable when the entire economy is based on the extraction of energy resources and the country is turning into a raw material appendage. The oil bounty will one day cease, and what will we do then?

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However, within our country, in the economy itself, processes are taking place that can nullify our historical chance. As a result of the eight years of KGB rule, radical monopolization took place, and in some areas of the economy — even re-nationalization. Experience shows that such developments is harmful to an  economy, lead to a fall in profits, destroy competition and "consumer dictatorship" in the market.

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The role of the state in the economy should be minimized, and the activities of large business should be curbed by antimonopoly legislation. This legislation should be developed, and not only at the federal, but also at regional levels, and strictly implemented.

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It is well-known that small and medium-sized businesses contribute much more to the wellbeing of the population than large ones: they increase employment, expand competition, and flexibly adapt to the needs of the consumer. It is this type of business that is now in a complete enclosure, crushed by bureaucracy, extortions, restrictive legislation. One can see a simple principle at work here: the more bureaucracy there is in a country, the smaller the middle class. It is necessary to promote the development of small and medium-sized businesses in every possible way.

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Another KGB legend is that Western countries dream to destroy or weaken Russia. Sometimes such statements of Russian leaders sound just like Gogol: Everyone feels flattered by a chance to offend a poor widow.

 

Having lived in the West for thirty years, I can guarantee that there are no such sentiments here, neither in society, nor among governments. Even now, when Russia again behaves like a street bully and is trying in every possible way to cause tension in foreign relations, this does not cause hatred or anger toward the Russians. People here shrug their shoulders in bewilderment, not understanding the reasons for such vitriol of the Russian authorities. On the contrary, the majority here would like to see Russia strong, since a strong partner is always more desirable than a weak one. Unlike Russia and the pre-war Germany, the leading Western countries have long been accustomed to building their relations on the principles of partnership. It's time for us to get used to this too.

 

The cold and hot wars of the old regime must become a thing of the past. In its foreign policy, Russia should be looking up to dictatorial and totalitarian regimes, but by developed democratic countries. Interference in the internal affairs of neighboring states and subversive activities against them must be stopped. It's time to drop the concept of "Russian sphere of influence" from the political vocabulary.

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It is necessary to establish peace with the Chechen Republic and establish a stable Russian-Chechen border. Russian troops must withdraw from the North Caucasus. The future fate of the Caucasian republics must be decided on the basis of self-determination of nations and other principles of international law.

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One can continue this manifesto indefinitely, writing down every aspect of life point by point. However, an election program is not a wish list. A program is a promise which one solemnly makes to the voter. I cannot give far-reaching promises, since their fulfillment depends not so much on me as on you.

 

Changing the political system is a daunting task in itself. And being up against a ruthless and insidious adversary who has been strengthening its position for eight years makes it generally infeasible. We need a miracle. And only mass declaration of the will of the people can become such a miracle. We don't know if this will happen or not. All we can do is try and hope.

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Skeptics are telling us that the approval rating of the current government is too high and the population is too apathetic. Is this so? The alternative we offer is completely black and white. For the first time in the electoral arena, a Russian citizen will face a choice: vote for a prisoner or vote for a cop. In the country of the GULAG, where, of course, there are more former prisoners than cops, I cannot imagine that they would prefer a cop. There are no prisoners who would like to live in the "red zone." (Labor camp where power of the prison authorities has no limits — translator).

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The past eight years have shown everyone what the cops' power is leading to. Do you want this to continue? Do you want your children and grandchildren to tremble with fear when they see a police uniform? Are you ready to pay extortion money to every bandit in uniform who knocks on your door? Will you continue to meekly hand over your children to the army to be slaughtered by Moloch? Give them up for torture and humiliation in the new GULAG and psychiatric hospitals?

 

Will we continue running away from those in power as it's been happening century after century — to Siberia, to the Don, to distant lands? Will we continue hanging on the KGB hook?

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Or, finally, will we decide to defend our homes from these latest in a series of invaders? If so, here's your chance. And I'm afraid the last one.

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2007.

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Translated from Russian by Alissa Ordabai.