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Filed under: Russia
The September 14th issue of the Moscow Times quotes newly-appointed Russian
Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov (pictured) as announcing "corruption is the major issue in our efforts to increase the effectiveness of the state administration." The Times stated that "Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov, who sits on the Duma's anti-corruption commission, said Zubkov was ready to 'seriously tackle' the issue."
Yet, according to the Times, many analysts were skeptical. It reported:
"Corruption is ubiquitous in Russia. It is the very texture of Russian life," said Masha Lipman, an expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "It would need a deep restructuring of the whole political system and the process of policymaking. What drives corruption is the large-scale involvement of the state."
"Everything here is rotted by corruption. I don't think Zubkov is going to position himself as a reckless warrior against corruption," said Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the Council for National Strategy and a former Kremlin adviser. "[His appointment] is just a public relations campaign. It is designed to concentrate people's minds on the problem of corruption and distract them from other issues."
Kirill Kabanov, head of the nongovernmental National Anti-Corruption Committee, said he did not see any efforts by the government to address corruption other than at the lowest levels. "I would like to see issues such as systemic corruption and the independence of the judiciary tackled," he said.
So it's possible that when Zubkov says he's going to launch a war on corruption, he's just blowing neo-Soviet smoke.
But there's another possibility. A source with knowledge of the proceedings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, tells me that just about the time Vladimir Putin came to power, the United States was helping many of the former Soviet republics set up what are generically called "Financial Intelligence Units" (FIU's). In the case of Russia, Putin called his newly-formed unit the "Committee for Financial Monitoring" (Komitet po Finansovomu Monitoringu - FMC). Even in Russia, the use of the word "komitet" (it's the "k" in KGB) was provocative, and true to form, Putin loaded it with ex-KGB guys.
My source tells me that everyone who was working with Russia on setting up their FIU, including the people from the international Financial Action Task Force ("FATF") (the enforcement lever U.S. personnel worked with to ensure compliance with FATF standards and recommendations), was somewhat surprised by the zeal with which Putin set up the FMC, but it wasn't long before they learned why: He cleverly turned all the tools they gave him for monitoring illegal financial flows into the best weapon imaginable against his political opposition. All he had to do was label them "extremist" if not "terrorist" organizations, and the rest quickly fell into place. Massive financial levers could be used to squeeze the victim, with the tacit approval of the Western powers -- who could hardly object to his using a weapon designed to combat terrorist financing against only slightly less dangerous "extremists."
So there you have it: the U.S. helped Putin create a new dimension to traditional Russian autocracy, helped bring it into the modern world, so to speak. The U.S. almost did the same in Ukraine, too, except that there the opposition was a little better developed, and they managed to seize power before the Russian-backed Kuchma/Yanukovych team was able to use the Ukrainian FIU against them.
And Viktor Zubkov was intimately involved in this process, ultimately being appointed by Putin to head the agency. So it's quite possible that by elevating Zubkov to an even higher position now, Putin is setting the stage for a major escalation in the growth of what can only be called a neo-Soviet state, crushing the last gasp of life out of dissident politics and rival centers of commercial power. In other words, it's possible Zubkov is quite serious about launching a war within Russia's financial systems, but one which would in effect make the country more corrupt, not less.
This tactic has already been used in regard to freedom of expression. Putin's government rammed through a so-called "Anti-Extremism Law" ostensibly to crack down on racist violence by skinheads against ethnic minority groups, but just as the law's opponents had feared no sooner did the law come into effect than it was immediately turned against opposition political groups, driving many out of business. In Putin's Russia, criticizing Putin is viewed as dangerously extreme.
My source had a number of personal meetings with Zubkov during the phase-up of the Russian FMC program, and refers to him as "an interesting guy." When he headed up meetings, he was much more prone to genuine smiles than a typical soviet aparatchik, and he usually had a mischievous twinkle in his eye when he smiled, as if he were letting everyone in on a good joke -- maybe like he was aware that the group's assignment was a silly, politically-motivated exercise in futility and wanted everyone to know that he was aware of it too, but "let's all pretend we're taking it seriously, okay?" My source characterizes him as "by far the most likable ex-sov I've ever met to this day."
However, throughout their dealings my source always assumed that Zubkov was KGB, basically because every single staff member on the Russian side was too. After dealing with Zubkov for some time, my source was actually quite surprised and impressed that the KGB could produce such a person. Zubkov's staff was found to be extremely cold to the idea of assisting other former Soviet republics to develop their own FIUs, and instead attempted to lobby for having Russia's entity perform umbrella functions "as if Ukraine was still part of Russia, or someday would return to that status." Later, my source realized there was another dimension to this as well: The Russians were openly (among themselves) planning to use the FMC and Anti-Money Laundering laws to disrupt the financing of the Russian opposition parties, and were afraid that if power changed hands in Ukraine (which it finally did, in the Orange Revolution), this weapon might be used against the pro-Russian parties.
Obviously, a slick experienced operator like Zubkov would be the perfect choice to spearhead a renewed effort to adopt a "final solution" on the Russian opposition groups; combined with the empowerment of a thug like Sergei Ivanov, and the tactics of physical liquidation that we have already seen applied to dissidents like Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, this could give the Kremlin a powerful one-two punch that might lay the last vestiges of civil society in Russia firmly in its tomb. If Zubkov is a deep-cover KGB mole and the Kremlin intends to conceal this fact (rather than bragging about it, as it often does), that would be a still further ominous indication of how bleak things may rapidly become in Russia.
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Comments
Artfldgr says:
There is no law written for fools (, if it is written, it is not read, if it is read, it is not understood, if it is understood, then in wrong way).
Teaching the fool [means] just spoiling him.
[Educated fool is more dangerous because he's likely to apply the newfound knowledge in wrong ways. — Also: Don't give him any ideas ]
For each wise man there are plenty of fools.
while russia doesnt have that saying, its knows plenty of fools as noted by the sayings above.
If Russia continues down this path, it's failure and collapse will be even more total and spectacular than that of the USSR
ah, but maybe the west might perk up an in that opposition purge itself of much of the cancer of socialism. if it doesnt then that collapse will be rewarded by more gifts, rather than let the kgb leaders fade away.
and since russian brought up confucious
When your horse is on the brink of a precipice it is too late to pull the reins.
A vacant mind is open to all suggestions as a hollow building echoes all sounds.
Rotten wood cannot be carved.
He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.
A man's faults all conform to his type of mind. Observe his faults and you may know his virtues
Men trip not on mountains they trip on molehills
A dog in a kennel barks at his fleas; a dog hunting does not notice them
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
There is no one to sweep a common hall
When a finger points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger
To see what is right and not to do it is to want courage
Control your emotion or it will control you
If a man plants melons, he will reap melons; if he sows beans, he will reap beans
in fact all over the world there are saying and such that describe russian and such perfectly
A narrow mind has a broad tongue
Arrogance diminishes wisdom
He who plants thorns must never expect to gather roses (persian)
The truth is not always what we want to hear (yiddish)
The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool when he speaks (yiddish)
How many will listen to the truth when you tell them? (yiddish)
There is no evil without its advantages (east indian)
The sieve says to the needle: You have a hole in your head (east indian)
The tree bestows its shade on all, even the woodcutter
He who knows nothing, doubts nothing (spanish)
Cow of many, well milked and badly fed (spanish)
What belongs to everybody belongs to nobody (spanish)
The wolf loses his teeth, but not his inclinations (spanish)
He who is shipwrecked the second time, cannot lay the blame on Neptune (english)
If three dogs chase a rabbit they cannot kill it
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root
Better to be a crystal and to be broken, than to be a tile upon the housetop (japan)
He that hath a head of wax must not walk in the sun (latin)
Even a hare will insult a dead lion (latin)
Live your own life, for you will die your own death (latin)
The wolf changes his coat but not his nature (latin)
To the ass, or the sow, their own offspring appears the fairest in creation (latin)
Who lies with dogs shall rise up with fleas (latin)
He who would rule must hear and be deaf, see and be blind (german)
It is an ill procession where the devil bears the cross (german)
He who holds the ladder is as bad as the thief (german)
Where the devil cannot come, he will send
Nothing will content him who is not content with a little (greek)
Wood that grows warped can never be straightened (greek)
and back to russia to end it
They gave the naked man a shirt and he said it was too thick
They bow to you when borrowing, you bow to them when collecting
To run away is not glorious, but very healthy
Sit a beggar at your table and he will soon put his feet on it
The horses of hope gallop, but the asses of experience go slowly
When you live next to the cemetery you cannot weep for everyone
Artfldgr says:
Russia has a challenging agenda to consolidate the nation, to develop a stable, efficient national economy, to grow the middle class to have a social base for strong, well functioning democracy, and thus to prevent Russia from collapse like it happened to the Soviet Union.
That might be true if they wanted to make things better for their people, however, in previous posts I have pointed out and shown them to be taking lots more money towards military projects, and skimming money from US military budget for meeting the same disarmament treaties already met by other states.
However in all that the biggest ignorant thing is “to grow the middle class”.
The USA has been socializing, and as part of that process, they are destroying or removing the middle class. From the middle class, new millionaires come, new businesses, and such. all that means new challengers to power.
A socialist system is a two class system. Haves (the state), provide for the have nots (the people). You can’t have socialism, unless you reduce the population to the two types Nietzsche spoke about, the rulers, and those who are ruled. Hopefully your light might just come on now, but alas, I am not that hopeful.
At what point have you not grasped that they don’t intend, nor ever intended to have western style democracy and such?
There is no arbitrary hate from the west towards Russia, any more than the west hates Finland. However, the major difference is ideology, and the rulers of the current regime were all born during Stalin, and would rise in the ranks of state ideological structures, of which the specific schools they went to are a major part.
From gorbachev, to yeltsin, to putin, and on… all of them have avowed to socialism, and as such, a many class free market system is not possible, not wanted, nor even on the table, other than to play word games. They have their own personal definition of democracy, and it allows them to say what they mean at the same time allowing the west to hear what they want to hear.
Zubkov is old, he is from nowhere, which means he has no independent connections in the pond he is now in. he has a lot of secret knowledge on the people who are the only ones that really have anything, and he knows the secret knowledge of the deals of putins Russia, and of the illegals and other things. He is a man with his finger on the arteries.
However, Putin does not intend nor will let happen any form of actual freedom for the Russian people, and the cadre of people that run things will have no desire to end their super gravy train even when or if he is gone.
In fact, it will have to collapse again, before they can clean house. They will never let go, and with the west more like them than the west was, well, they might not have to.
Socialism destroys the middle class because of taxes… they sell it that they will help this or that, but invariably someone has to take money to do it since its not charity. When they do this, they cant take it from the poor. The poor don’t have it… and they cant take it from the wealthy. Whether the wealthy are old time money, or just powerful, like in the east, or new money after new money in the west, they just don’t support someone that will actually take their money, if someone does do that, then no one likes him, no one goes to the dinners, and they don’t get office. This is not a conspiracy, this is people voting their interest….
The poor are voting to soak the rich, and so they are happy that the middle class gets soaked, and will keep soaking them.
The middle class is too busy wrestling with pigs in the mud and trying to feel good and are voting to soak the rich, but end up soaking themselves.
The wealthy, who are smart enough to earn enough to get over the hump, they have no real interest in losing their money, and so they donate to someone that will makesure that there are a few ways for them either to keep the cash, or if taken, to control where it goes. Like 145 million to socialist orgs as a write off.
So what happens is that when everyone is convinced that socialism is the thing, they then go on a long journey to separate the wide spectrum of poor to wealthy with tons of places, till you only have two kinds of people… the lumpen proletariat, and the ruling class that rules for them, who they have put everything into their hands, including their lives, their children, their futures, and everything…
So your thoughts that they would let a middle class appear, are really strange.. all through their history, they have been very negative to the kulaks type… what makes you think that they will be different now when the people who are in office now are very steeped in some of the hardest of the ideology?
Artfldgr says:
pt1:
KGB does not exist any longer
If you want to play semantics, no it doesn’t exist, it has changed its name again. In fact it barely makes it twenty years without changing its name, structure, and such, but it always has the same task. The FSB (the newer name of the same system), is in opposition to the GRU. The head of the GRU always being an FSB man. They are both independent and have their own mandates, and each would like to swallow the other, and with them stands the party organ.
The KGB was officially to be replaced by soviet presidential debree oct 25th 1991. The FSB was created by presidential decree November 26th, 1991. in essence nothing much changed, as they didn’t put the old KGB out on the street and repopulate with those not associated with the old KGB regime, as was done for denazification when germany fell.
I guess the biggest document was presidential edict 806 signed by that saint yeltsin on july 6th 1998 that gave this party organ a new structure yet again. All throughout Russian history, from the time of Lenin in the first days, the KGB existed in one name or form (and the military intelligence organs which are separate despite the head being an FSB person).
So I am not using Stalin era information the neo-Russian leadership is. after all, they just ‘corrected’ their textbooks to make Stalin out to be a hero, and what does someone do with the policies of heroes versus the hated?
In the USSR after Stalin death KGB already was not some secret, very mean and powerful order arresting, torturing and killing ordinary citizens on its own will and choice. That was just a law-enforcement and security agency, totally under the government and the Communist Party control. Kind of FBI and CIA under the same one roof. Do you mind having CIA and FBI?
This is an outright lie. It either is relying on people not knowing the history of the organs, and the philosophy behind them, or the person (you), do not know enough Russian history to actually comment.
I have mentioned that your trying to reason to them, through reasoning your own. This wont work, the systems are that different. The scope and power of the organs of the state in Russia is many time more than the FBI and CIA. I doubt your interested in the real history of these organs from day one.
It is a myth that the organs of state were not developed or made till after the first 41 days of the new state, they were there from day one. that first day of the revolution Lenin appointed A.I.Rikov as the peoples commissariat for internal affairs… the NKVD. They later shot Rikov, but not before he had written his own bloody history into the affairs.
It boils down to the principle: 'divide and rule'. In the beginning, in order to rule, Lenin divided everything in Russia that was capable of being divided, and ever since the communists have continued faithfully to carry out the instructions of the great founder of the first proletarian state.
It’s the same tactic here in the US. Feminists insure a permanent division between husband and wife and natural partners. The gay liberation front does the same for heteros and gays, and on and on… you can find tons of them now, all with the intent of dividing the masses into small groups that give their power to a leadership whose power is limited by the maximum size the fracturing allows. The more fractured, the less powerful the people are in affecting the state positively.
The FSB and GRU form two legs of a three legged chair. The third leg is the party. This is the structure of their past state, this is the structure of their current state, and even the people are the same, though they have slightly different titles, and new letterheads.
Basically the idea is to set things in opposition, and in this way they are too busy fighting each other to team up against the higher power base. This is how power is compartmentalized. So in the old days, they had Pravda… and they had izvestia… Tass created as a counterbalance to APN… and not for western style competition, but for duplication. To quote:
Duplication in everything is the prime principle and reason behind the terrifying stagnation of all walks of life in Soviet society. It is also the reason for the unprecedented stability of the regime. In duplicating the Organs, the Politburo was able to neutralise any attempt by them to raise the standard of revolt against their creators, and thus it has always been.
And so the same structure is in place today… which is why the same kind of reasoning can predict what will happen. Russian, you are like a long shot gambler, who keeps betting the long shots so that they can then say “see, I knew it”, but ignores the long string of ignorance that led up the mathematical success.
Some of them defected, like Gordievskiy or Kalugin, some had more patriotism, like Putin and decided to work for their country.
what is bad about that?
Nothing if your relativism was correct, but it isn’t. do note that i don’t say that the UK doesn’t spy in the US, or others. What’s different is the morals and the actions, and so on. There is nothing on the western side that even comes close to that ‘organ’ of state.
By their own structure they oversee not only their own people, but those that have immigrated to the west! That this is not just a state organ trusted with the protection of the state, this is a state organ trusted to fulfill the goals of communism which REQUIRES a dictatorship of the proletariat that is global. That has not changed, no matter how many times they have changed their names.
The Party, the KGB and the Army form the triumvirate which rules. All other institutions and organisations, including those which appear officially to wield State power, occupy a subordinate position. But no single one of the three holds absolute power. They are all interdependent and have to share power with their rivals. There is a constant underlying struggle between these three forces, with attacks and retreats, bloody skirmishes, victories, defeats, armistices, secret alliances and permanent treachery.
The only thing that has changed is the methods that they use. while functionally equivalent, they are now often operationally different. So if the old way was to whip you to get you to move, the new way is to make it cheaper to move than to stay. Either way, you move.
However, they have not stopped the assassinations, and the killings and all the old stuff. its just as it was in the beginning, when they were too concerned with the consolidation of power to be concerned with the people, but rest assured, they will eventually turn again to their people.
They have SAID that they will never give up the struggle for world communism. The funny thing is that I think that that is so… they think that is so… and the only ones that don’t, are the leftist apologists in the west who are doing the same thing that they did in the 30s. (and with a recession to depression, may try the same exact thing again!)
In October 1917, we parted with the old world, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road. - Gorbachev
In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State. Sozhenitzyn
Obviously western apologists never got the memo.
Putin was elected by the people.
Really? By that token so was Hitler. What are you trying to say here? that elections are a cure against despotism? Wait to see what chavez is pulling, you will see that elections are only slightly better at avoiding despots. When the leaders are heads of the largest humint propaganda factory, avoiding a despot becomes nigh impossible. Which is the point.
According to the press “After successfully beating off the Communist challenge in the 1996 election, he presided over a series of financial and economic crises and eventually, in 1999, installed former KGB officer Vladimir Putin as his anointed heir. (Putin inaugurated his own term by launching a second brutal war in Chechnya to reverse the concessions Yeltsin had made to end the first one.) “
When I think elections I don’t remember them using words like anointed heir, and installed.
If he invited guys with KGB background in his government-he is in charge, and by the Constitution has the right to appoint.
There is a big difference in appointing people to build a railroad, and appointing people who will chance the constitution to secure your power. in fact, the constitution should have forbidden those who were a part of the old system, who planned, and executed the purges and stuff (plenty of evidence that they were PLANNED as a way of going forward and insuring that they stay in power no matter what the people do!)
To use your kind of reasoning, you would think nothing of all the top cabinet positions of the government, the judiciary, the house, and so on, are all staffed with cia operatives who not only hold that office, but actually are executing that offices actions through their position in the cia, not the office.
That would sit ok with you? every top level person a cia, nsa, appointee… and each having the ability to eradicate competition and manipulate public view through assassinations, false accusations, and more.
You are so inconsistent that you are just blindly wacking away… throwing the underwear to the will trying to find someplace it will stick.
And I am glad you brought up defectors…
Many defectors, have pointed out that the fall of the soviet union was PLANNED as a way to get money and technology from the west. To allow for the easier movement of natinals and allow for greater levels of spying and manipulation. All in all the fall has been a stupendous boon to the KGB and its planners.
What you don’t get is that Gordievskiy and Kalugin defected because they were MORE patriotic, not less. They loved their country more than they loved what these criminals are doing.
For those here that don’t know Oleg Gordievsky defected in September 1985. He joined the KGB around 1962, where he worked first directorate, the agency that ran “illegals” in the west. (the GRU, and its subagencies ALL run their own illegals as well. the beast is HUGE). He is one of MANY who claim to be the “the ranking spy to defect to the west”.
You bring him up, and some of his most recent commentary is that the FSB has returned to its old ways (with a new name). that it now uses assassinations and purges to control outcomes.
This makes the concept of elections a farce.
But since telling you doesn’t get you to listen at all… lets check things out.
Marina Pisareva – found dead at her dacha
Konstantin Borovko – beaten to death in Vladivostock
Ivan Safronov – covered military affairs he fell from the fifth floor of his apartment building. (he was writing about the FSB).
Vadim Kuznetsov – killed in st petersburg
Vaghif Kochetkov – killed in tula
Ilya Zimin – killed in moscow
Vyacheslav Akatov
Anton Kretenchuk
Alexander Petrov
Anna Politkovskaya – bet you know this one…
The list goes on and on… all the way back… leopards don’t change their spots.
Right now.. iraq and algeria are the top two dogs for political assasinatino of journalists… but russia comes up as third…
The USA is not even on the list… though columbia, bosnia, somalia, rwanda, seira leone, tajakistan, and lots of others…
So russia is now on par with columbia and iraq in how it handles journalists..
Bet the dead are glad that the leader was voted in…
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