And then they rested on a rock, conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood and waited in a row.
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot — and whether pigs have wings.”
– Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass, 1872
If you are a fan of Lewis Carroll, then you know what happened to the little oysters who sat and listened to the discussion of the Walrus and the Carpenter. It????????s the very same thing that happened to those who listened to Daniel Treisman several years ago, when he started talking about what a ???????normal country??????? Russia was. This is the first in a series of articles designed to call those who misled us on the rise of Neo-Soviet Russia to account, and there is no better place to begin than with Treisman, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In the March/April 2004 issue of Foreign Policy, along with collaborator Andrei Shleifer, a professor of Economics at Harvard University, Treisman published a voluminous essay about Russia entitled ???????A Normal Country.??????? It was just about the time that Vladimir Putin, a proud KGB spy, was being reelected president, and the West had to decide whether to fish or cut bait in opposing him. In the article, Treisman argued that while ???????conventional wisdom in the West says that post-Cold War Russia has been a disastrous failure, the facts say otherwise. Aspects of Russia’s performance over the last decade may have been disappointing, but the notion that the country has gone through an economic cataclysm and political relapse is wrong–more a comment on overblown expectations than on Russia’s actual experience. Compared to other countries at a similar level of economic and political development, Russia looks more the norm than the exception.???????
The thesis was, we now clearly see, ludicrous on its face. What other country in all of human history has perpetrated an atrocity even remotely similar to the election of a proud KGB spy following decades during which that organization obliterated Russia????????s religion, its intelligentsia, its sources of basic information and, body by body, the nation itself, shipping it off like cordwood to perish lost in the Gulag Archipelago? But a ludicrous thesis has never been a matter of concern for a Russophile bent on misleading the West, because often as not the West has been wont to fall for them.
To give Foreign Policy its due, in the next issue it published an article by Harvard history professor Richard Pipes (“Freedom from Freedom: What Russians think and want”) setting forth the opposite view. One need only compare the two articles to what we actually see before us today in order to see who was right and who was so woefully misleading us. But one must ask: Have we given due credit to Professor Pipes and meted out due blame to Professor Treisman? It would not appear so. If we have not done so, how can we possibly expect to get the right information the next time an important fork in the road is reached on Russia?
Treisman is an avid participant in the Valdai Discussion Club which Publius Pundit has previously exposed as an utter sham (Pipes is not a member of that august tribunal). Treisman published an article in Foreign Policy in Winter 1999, just before Putin came to power, in which he boldly predicted that no matter what happened in the election ???????Russia is and will remain a decentralized federation. While there is much to be said in favor of decentralization, the existence of 89 semi-autonomous regions also means that economic criminals or tax evaders have 89 possible hiding places and 89 chances to find a corrupt regional government. Large companies play the regions and the central government against each other. The president can do little but bargain with regional leaders who threaten secession in order to extort aid, pilfer federal taxes, and co-opt federal police or even army units on their territory.??????? Shortly after coming to power, President Putin abolished the election of governors, obliterated the nation????????s leading oil firm, YUKOS, and sent its chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky to prison in Siberia. He seized control of all the major television networks and a more than a dozen leading journalists were assassinated. In other words, Treisman????????s statement was pure garbage. But having heard it, many might have dropped their guard, failing to oppose Putin????????s rise to power as actively as they might have done and allowing him to consolidate his power. Soon, Treisman was supping at the Presidential Table in Valdai????????s warm embrace.
In the 1999 article, Treisman also stated that ???????Countries that are as poor as Russia and that have had as little experience with democracy or openness to trade are always corrupt, as a quick glance around the world will confirm.??????? He didn????????t reckon on the repeated findings of Transparency International, a respected German think tank, which in 2005 found that of 159 countries in the world only 31 were more corrupt than Russia. Russia tied with Niger and Sierra Leone, two countries far poorer than Russia, for position #126 in the world while Mexico and Brazil, the two countries to which Triesman would later attempt to compare Russia, came in at #65 and #62 respectively — only half as corrupt as Russia. So-called “scientists” are not supposed to deal in “quick glances around the world,” they’re supposed to deal in data and facts.
Treisman stated: ???????Russia’s fledgling democracy has a presidential system that does not guarantee a parliamentary majority for the chief executive. When, as has happened throughout the 1990s, the Russian president faces a hostile majority, significant policy changes should hardly be expected. Even presidential decrees can be overruled by parliamentary laws, and industrial lobbyists end up playing the Duma off the president just as they pit the central against the regional authorities. These constraints remain.??????? Then Putin summarily obliterated all serious political parties opposing his rule and assumed a virtual chokehold over the Duma, which now operates as his rubber stamp.
In haughty, condescending language, Treisman concluded: ???????The danger is that Western politicians will overreact to the hostile rhetoric, stir up public opinion, and shut off contact, thus missing the opportunities that such rhetoric conceals. One day, probably about a year after he moves into the Kremlin, Russia’s next president will look in the mirror and see not himself but Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin. Let us hope that by that time the West has not taught itself to see Lenin or Stalin.??????? In the light of hindsight, this appears as one of the most absurd and outrageous statements ever made about Russia (to say nothing of being one of the most arrogant and condescending). The West bent over backwards to accommodate Putin in his early days, President Bush ???????looked into his eyes and saw his soul,??????? and yet Putin barreled heedlessly forward to obliterate all the basic reforms instituted by Yeltsin and return Russia to a neo-Soviet state. In light of the Litvinenko poisoning and Politkovskaya????????s killing, Treisman????????s statements turn the stomach. It’s enough to make one wonder who’s actually paying this man’s salary.
But there is probably no amount of Maalox that could suffice to sate our tumultuous innards when we turn to the 6,600-word magnum opus about a ???????normal country??????? that came four years later. It????????s impossible within these narrow confines to address each one of the dangerously misleading comments set forth in the text, so let????????s just address some of the real lowlights.
Starting with his basic thesis: Treisman argues that Russia is a ???????middle income??????? country like Brazil or Mexico, and has the same sort of government and economy those countries have, with the same right of aspiration to something more to come in the future (such as was achieved in America and Europe, which also had backward economic and political systems at one point). There are three hideous, irresponsible flaws in this line of reasoning:
First, unlike Mexico and Brazil, Russia is an ancient and highly industrialized civilization which has had and bungled many chances to develop into a modern and successful state. Treisman????????s analysis is completely barren of historical context (perhaps because it was written by a political scientist and an economist), and that is a shame. The Pipes article, by contrast, contains useful discussion of historical context which obliterates the foundation of Treisman????????s position.
Second, unlike Brazil and Mexico, Russia must use its ???????middle income??????? to maintain vastly more square miles per person of territory and a vastly more expensive and complex military apparatus, including ICBMs, meaning that Russia????????s civilian economy is far more burdened and stressed than is Mexico????????s or Brazil????????s. What????????s more, Russia must pay for the bloody conflict in Chechnya, and for the rebuilding, tasks neither Brazil nor Mexico are burdened with. In addition, Russia places vastly more reliance on the sale of natural resources to sustain the economy that does Mexico or Brazil, meaning that Russia is much more at the mercy of arbitrary world energy prices. The sustainable sector of Russia????????s economy is not middle income, it is third-world and shrinking (especially outside the major cities). And it is just flatly wrong to call Russia a ???????capitalist??????? country when the vast majority of the means of production is still owned by the state, to which the vast majority of citizens owe their subsistence. Market forces simply do not operate in Russia to anything like the extent the do in Mexico or Brazil. If you doubt that, just ask a shareholder of YUKOS, Shell or British Petroleum.
But the most important point by far is the third, namely that neither Mexico nor Brazil are governed by an individual who spent his life working for the secret police, who indeed continues to proclaim his pride of service and who has made no effort whatsoever to atone personally or on behalf of the nation for any political crimes. The most salient fact about Russia today is that the population has chosen, by a landslide and with hardly any public discussion, to turn over the reigns of power to a member of the nefarious establishment that brought the nation infamous suffering and death for decades. It????????s more than a little disappointing that Treisman fails to mention the fact that foreign direct investment in Russia has been almost completely choked off during the Putin administration, whereas both Brazil and Mexico maintain foreign investment at a vastly (indeed, incomparably) greater level.
After the Treisman article appeared on Johnson’s Russia List, a number of commentators exposed other serious flaws in the analysis. Fulbright scholar Joseph Wolpin wrote that “the Shleifer/Treisman article abounds with dubious assertions and shortsighted analogies.” For instance, he stated: “The authors???????? statistical evidence that Russians???????? lives are improving often lacks context. For example, the fact that ‘the number of Russians going abroad as tourists rose from 1.6 million in 1993 to 4.3 million in 2000,’ is superficial. Where are most of these Russian tourists going? Many can only afford a cheap trip to Turkey, Finland and other nearby destinations. It is little accomplishment that a slightly less-microscopic fraction of Russians can now afford an inexpensive getaway, spending their savings on a vacation they believe is a better use of their money than depositing it in a bank.” Russia commentator Matthew Maly asked “Why do I find the article so confusing?” and answered: “Because Shleifer and Treisman use a faulty rhetorical device that could be used to “prove” anything.” He noted: “Shleifer and Treisman have got to be kidding when they compare Russian oligarchs with Korean ones. Thieves do not produce anything: they steal. The Russian oligarchs did not produce an LG Flat Screen or a Daewoo automobile. We are talking a different set of skills and attitudes here.” And commentator Ed Dolan sided with Wolpin in blasting Treisman’s shoddy scholarship:
Joseph Wolpin makes an important point when he criticizes Schleifer and Treisman for dismissing the rise in inequality in Russia as an unfortunate by product of otherwise beneficial reforms: “ÄaÅs unfortunate as the growth of inequality in Russia has been, it is largely the result of the inevitable upheavals associated with rationalizing economic activity.” Wolpin is right. The Shleifer/Treisman view is inconsistent with recent scholarship on the sources of inequality in transition economies, which suggests that in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltic States, the view of inequality as a by-product of beneficial reforms is valid, whereas in Russia and other CIS states, rising inequality is a sign of a distorted and incomplete transition process characterized by corruption and state capture.
Finally, Vladimir Shlapentokh acidly observed:
The methodology used by the authors to prove this thesis is indeed quite original. Imagine a patient with many health problems being brought to two young doctors who are in rosy moods and in good health. Inspecting patient A????????s problems they, with full Panglossian optimism, convincingly explain to him that other people are in much worse shape. For instance, the heart of patient B (“market economy”), the liver of patient C (corruption), the kidney of the patient D (criminalization) and the spleen of patient E (democratic system) are in bad shape indeed. The doctors did not tell their patient that what makes his life miserable is the fact that he has all of these illnesses. The devil in social and natural science lies in combinatorics. It is almost unbelievable that the authors have literally ignored all other variables that influence the developments in any country, including the cultural and political context, historical traditions, the ethnic composition, the size of the country, its geographic position in the world, the natural resources, and several other factors.
Citing polls from the Levada center, Shlapentokh stated “Of course, the authors declined to consider the way the Russians assess their own lives. Indeed, it is not the first time in history that people have been told to feel a certain way, as recommended from the top or from outside.”
Almost unbelievable, but not quite. Once we realize Treisman’s agenda, it’s not only difficult to believe but not even surprising. And we still see this same nefarious agenda in operation today, among those who continue to apologize for and rationalize the growth of the neo-Soviet state in Russia. Take for instance a recent volume of “history” from Oxford Professor Philip Longworth (“Russia: The Once and Future Empire“) which, while admitting the “consistent tendency of Russian leaders to colonize and conquer, including the Soviet state of recent years” claims that “the Cold War could have been avoided if the Marshall Plan (established by the Truman Administration after World War II) had not been designed in a way that was unacceptable to the Soviet Union” and that “Putin demonstrated that ‘managed democracy was working,’ even if it failed to meet modern constitutional political standards. Nonetheless, it was ‘no worse a travesty than the American presidential election of 2000 had been, and even American businessmen in Russia preferred Putin’s careful authoritarianism to anarchic rule by oligarchs and mafias.’” Did George Bush arrest his key rival in 2000 and send him to Siberia after nationalizing his business, America’s most significant private corporation? Did Putin rise to the presidency after 2000 only following a hearing before Russia’s Supreme Court? Did he participate in any televised debates against his rivals as Bush did? Professor Longworth’s memory is selective indeed.
The result was that history itself was left to be the arbiter as to whether Pipes or Treisman had correctly called the tune. Perhaps not surprisingly, its verdict went to the historian. Now, it’s time to call Professor Treisman to account. It’s time to send a message that we will not tolerate this type of propaganda being spewed out by those who cloak themselves in the legitimacy of our mighty universities, and especially not on an issue of such vital importance as the democratization of Russia. By listening to Professor Treisman, and those like him, we were induced to drop our guard and allow Putin to condolidate his malignant grip on Russia. Because we listened, we now have the blood of Anna Politkovskaya on our hands, and we face a daunting challenge that need never have arisen. Just punishment for Professor Treisman? Let’s send him to Russia to live out the remainder of his days. Or would that be cruel and inhuman?
At the same time, we must give due credit to those like Pipes, Maly, Shlapentokh, Dolan and Wolpin who spoke the truth. If we don’t, how can we expect such people to step forward in the future, and how can we ever expect to get Russia right?
Kim Zigfeld is the publisher of the Russia blog, “La Russophobe“
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