Russia's Bumpy Road

...The numerous processes that are going on do not all point in the same direction...

...You hear the most appalling stories...

...But strong-arm methods alone are unlikely to be successful...

...Some entrepreneurs are afraid that if their business grows they will not be able to avoid contact with organized crime...

...They respond to the assertion that what has happened in the Soviet Union is a proof of the superiority of capitalism over socialism the way a bull responds to a red rag...

...they expect the Russian Army to appear soon in the lands of the ex-Soviet Union and, shortly afterward, launch an offensive to reconquer Eastern Europe...

...The form of capitalism you see in Russia is not very attractive...

...It is poorly lit, dirty and full of the shady characters the press back home described...

...Since then his star has faded quite a bit...

...If anything the people milling around in the streets appear better dressed...

...He blames Mikhail S. Gorbachev...

...But if a referendum were held here tomorrow, asking the Russian people whether they want to take back Belarus, the majority would probably say no...

...One involves ordinary street crime...

...Indeed, the very strength of our optimism then appears to be contributing to our sour mood now...

...Moreover, we assumed that when the end came it would be the result of an immense explosion—something we did not dare to hope for, since we were afraid of the consequences...

...He explained that he bought the second car as a hedge against inflation...

...It is hard to go against that consensus, for obviously there is much truth in it...

...Can we blithely dismiss the argument that the growing inequality is a painful but necessary step toward building a healthier economy...

...For the Left, focusing on Russia's difficulties unconsciously justifies believing the previous system, which they tended to consider legitimate, was probably best for it...

...The Russian authorities have merely a vague sense of the nature and extent of the problem...

...With some surprise you discover that the renovations on a large number of buildings have been completed...

...Yet this is not the first time that Americans of different political persuasions and backgrounds have been in agreement about Russia...

...In his defense, it can be said that no one else really has one either...

...Moscow is no longer the very safe city it used to be...

...It had already survived some 65 years and we expected it to last another generation at the minimum...

...Should we be glad...

...People voted for him not because they wanted Russia to reconquer republics recently lost, but in spite of his mad imperialism...

...The consensus goes something like this: Most Russians are close to starvation because the economy is collapsing...

...It is clearly the result of anarchy, disillusionment and poverty...

...In any case, who ever heard of an optimistic prophet...

...As you stand in line waiting for a table in a pleasant fashionable restaurant, where the waiters are polite and efficient, the man behind you pulls a cellular phone out of his pocket and gives business instructions to a partner...

...If an anti-reform candidate wins the next presidential elections, it will not be Zhirinovsky...

...Among Western observers it suits remarkably well the needs of both the Left and the Right...

...maybe the old system was not so bad after all...

...We seem convinced that wisdom resides in pessimism, that by comparison optimism is shallow...

...Rather remarkably, within a short time this country that had no journalism as we understand it has given birth to a number of intelligent newspapers in which serious people openly discuss genuine issues facing society...

...It is as if we are ashamed of having thought that bringing about positive change would be a relatively simple matter, and are determined to prove to ourselves that we are no longer naive...

...Because of ruinous taxation, for example, some small private factories do not pay their workers...

...The problems we hear so much about are genuine...

...They are not inclined to make sacrifices for their errant brothers...

...You hear of old people murdered by criminals who want to get hold of their apartments...

...There are no drive-by shootings, no gang wars, and turf battles among drug lords are rare...

...An old friend of mine, a writer who could not publish under the Soviet regime, now is being published...

...Even those who are most dismayed by what is happening in the country are forced to concede that the old economic system had outlived its usefulness, and that within it there were no further possibilities of growth and development...

...Of bombings and the killing of bankers and rich businessmen...

...Gum, the unspeakably shabby yet famous state-owned department store of Soviet times, has been transformed into a fashionable shopping arcade full of well-known Western brand names, the same ones you would find in San Francisco or Hong Kong...

...At the same time this good and honest man, who believed in the ideas on which the Soviet system was based, has been shaken by learning about the misdeeds of the Stalin era...

...One is tempted to phrase the issue in Marxist terms: The means of production developed to such an extent that the mode of production, Soviet-style Communism, was incapable of accommodating additional growth...

...restructuring the economy was a difficult task that no one has as yet fully mastered...

...The future is unpredictable...

...As your taxi cruises through the streets of Moscow on a sunny summer evening, you notice that at least on the surface it looks no different than it did last year...

...The changes that are occurring here obviously favor the rich, the people interested in business who do not shy away from the sharp dealings the circumstances require...

...Knowledge of their activity, however, is entirely anecdotal...

...They cite figures that show aprecipitous decline in overall production, still high inflation, and an increasing percentage of Russians below the poverty line...

...Pretty soon you realize that unlike the old days, anyone who has the money can buy absolutely everything in Moscow...

...Skeptics contend that besides having no experience with democracy, the Russians have little commitment to it, and therefore extremists from the Left and the Right, separately or together, will get rid of the current system...

...Only a fool would maintain that Russia is safely on the path to a democratic polity, and to a market economy that will assure a better standard of living for everyone...

...In front of a new bank on Tverskaia Boulevard, the sidewalk is being prettified...

...Gone are the Berezka shops that were restricted to the Communist elite and to foreigners...

...They are in effect saying to us: What is happening in Russia is also capitalism, and it is not pretty...

...Instead, they give them a portion of what is produced, the workers sell that on the street, and the businessmen's taxes are reduced...

...Another friend, a physicist who worked for an institute of the Academy of Sciences, left his job because the Academy paid poorly, and at times not at all...

...Aside from those occasions when the country was invaded by merciless foreign foes, conventional nationalism has never been a potent mobilizing force...

...Much of the economy is underground...

...The state is deprived of desperately needed tax revenues and the culture of cheating is encouraged...

...Only the few who were committed to strongly held views, or negative by nature, failed to see a wonderful springtime of nations, a time of renewal, the end of history: Liberalism, the market economy and democratization had triumphed...

...And, to be sure, Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport is a depressing place...

...He thinks the country is on the right path...

...the poor here do not yet prey on one another...

...No wonder the traveler who arrives here expects the worst...

...Though Russian democrats missed great opportunities, the life of the nation constantly poses new questions andnecessitates choices...

...This is hardly to be applauded...

...Of illegal mafia weapon sales to foreign countries or to terrorist organizations...

...Crime exists on two different levels, even though it is often difficult to draw a line between them...

...He owns two cars...

...What they ignore is that Zhirinovsky was the chief opponent of an unpopular government...

...For her the most important thing is religious freedom...

...You clutch your purse, never let your luggage out of sight for a moment, and avoid the suspicious figures offering you a ride into the center of the city...

...Of robbers who attack railroad passengers with some kind of sleep-inducing spray and ransack their compartments...

...He was born at the end of World War II and he accepted what he was told...

...But these numbers are not the whole story...

...Commentators frequently talk about the danger of Russian Bosnias, of unhappy citizens turning to nationalist demagogues...

...Certainly the rules of the game, so to speak, have not yet been firmly set...

...Of innocent victims of mafia gun fights...

...They not only murder those unwilling to pay for protection, they kill wives and children as well...

...That it is real there can be no doubt...

...For all practical purposes the ruble has become convertible...

...Just as Soviet statistics overstated economic output, post-Soviet statistics greatly understate it...

...Russia has a wonderfully lively and free press...

...The unstated and unexamined message is that the country's citizens were better off under the discarded Soviet system, and so was the international community...

...It may be more hazardous today to be a banker in Russia than a miner or astronaut...

...no unsavory character is likely to come up to you and offer to buy yours...

...They point to the unsettling number of votes Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky garnered in December as the first sign of worse things to come...

...Whether on balance this is a sensible sacrifice is debatable, and in fact is being debated on the government television channel...

...Nor can it be denied that the democrats have made dreadful mistakes...

...He says he might vote for the Afghan war hero, Aleksandr V Rutskoi, but never for Zhirinovsky, whom he considers a clown...

...Our newspapers and scholarly magazines are full of badnews from Russia...

...The answers to questions of that sort must be subjective...

...Now he has started his own business and is importing scientific instruments...

...For those on the Right, Russia's current problems are a confirmation of their basic belief that it is still not, and may never be, ready for democracy...

...Moreover, while Prime Minister Victor S. Chernomyrdin may not be charismatic, he is a genuine compromise between reformers and conservatives, and democracies must be based on compromise...

...democracy is fragile and under constant threat, especially from the extreme nationalist Right...

...In spite of this, there is ample reason to continue to take pleasure in the relatively bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union—and to assert that the possibilities for building democracy in Russia have never been better in its long history than they are today...

...They therefore stress the need for vigilance...

...Not surprisingly, you find a wide variety of views among Russians concerning their nation's predicament at the moment...

...The scaffolding is finally coming off the National Hotel, and even Herzen Street, torn up for years, is open to traffic...

...Russia's mafia elements are reputed to be extraordinarily vicious...

...Having enumerated the weaknesses of the democrats, we should not forget their accomplishments...

...Whatever one might think of the political wisdom of dispersing Parliament in 1993, in the process marauding gypsy bands were largely removed from the streets of the capital...

...A decade ago, we all took it for granted that the Soviet regime possessed great resilience...

...An acquaintance, a simple, uneducated man who had worked as a cook, has opened his own restaurant and become rich...

...People on the Left are disturbed by American, Western and capitalist triumphalism...

...Most impressive, perhaps, is that you actually see people working...

...Another consensus, albeit brief, was inspired by the euphoria that prevailed from 1989 to 1991...

...That it frightens the Russians is indisputable...

...Luckily, we were all wrong...

...Except for analytical purposes, the surge in crime cannot be separated from the economy and politics...

...The correlation between economic well-being and approval of reforms is strong, but not the sole criterion...

...She is still very poor, yet she is enthusiastic about the future...

...Next morning you take a walk in the city...

...workers are putting down fancy stonework...

...Various political figures, including President Boris N. Yeltsin, have warned of taking steps against criminals that would be in violation of the country's shaky Constitution...

...But what did we expect...

...We have a limited tolerance for optimism...

...It is the center, the best part of town, where hoodlums target foreigners, that is most dangerous...

...Still, by every measure it is safer than virtually any major American city...

...crime, degradation and dreadful poverty are the stuff of radio and TV reports...

...By its very nature, organized crime is difficult to assess objectively...

...Particularly unfortunate was the failure to call elections in September 1991, at the most glorious moment of democracy...

...The government has passed the sensible and egalitarian law that prices must be given in the currency of the land...

...VLADIMIR V. ZHIRINOVSKY Freeing prices without first reorganizing the economy was similarly a mistake, albeit more understandable: Prices could be freed with a stroke of a pen...

...True, the critics who worry about Russia's future base their feelings on statistics...

...Peter Kenez, a frequent New Leader contributor, is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz...

...You fear being taken to a deserted street, robbed and perhaps killed...

...The development of political parties here is still rudimentary, and in the December '93 elections the open and hidden enemies of democracy showed unexpected strength...

...Meanwhile, Yeltsin seems to have run out of ideas and lacks a clear plan for the country...

...Outlying working-class districts are quite safe...

...The recent elections in Belarus demonstrated that the people there would be willing to sacrifice a substantial part of their sovereignty for the sake of economic benefit...

...On the political front, last year's balloting did not bring forth a parliamentary majority dedicated to reform and democracy, but it does represent the national will...

...To the Russians, who never had a chance to read about crime in their newspapers, all this is terrifying...

...They believe the Central Asians, Belarus and Ukraine were the losers in opting for independence, and are convinced their Slav comrades sooner or later will want to rejoin the mother country...

...Other shopping arcades are being opened all over town...

...The cranes that used to stand immobile in the same spot endlessly now are moving...

...Oddly, he has contempt for the present government and argues that everything in the past was better...

...These people are constantly looking for signs of Russian misbehavior...

...A second acquaintance, an engineer in a large factory producing military hardware, is the only one I know who has taken the breakup of the empire as a personal blow...

...How much does it matter that Moscow's streets are more attractive than ever before...

...Is it a good thing that now some Russians can go into a Benetton store and purchase what in their context is an extremely expensive blouse...

...Then there is crime...

...Russians resent the way the new Baltic states have treated their countrymen...

...One can only hope the economic and political system will weather the stormy transitional period...

...Maybe they do perform better when they are paid...

...Those of us who place great value on equality are bound to be displeased by the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor...

...The prices are Western prices, but you simply need cash, be it dollars, yen, marks, or, most significantly, rubles...

...Nonetheless, when the hidden production is taken into account overall output is not nearly as bad as we would conclude from the raw figures...

...They appear to be right...

...Of course, there are other reasons for the present pessimism...

...The other level, organized crime, poses a threat to the political life of the nation...

...That it has a baneful effect on the economic development is obvious...

...Is it important that waiters in privately owned restaurants make an effort to please you...

...No opportunity is lost forever...

...There is nothing you cannot get for rubles, assuming you have enough...

...Except for the Baltic states, all the new countries are economically worse off than Russia...

...crime is rampant...

...You hear also that the mafia is running, or is about to take over, the country...

...But once you are safely away from that dreadful airport, the picture changes...

...Or that a very few can buy a Mercedes-Benz...

...Russians can buy dollars officially, if they so desire...

...These are not good times for intellectuals, artists and pensioners...

...They do not like the frequently repeated statement that America won the Cold War...

...Crime is bound to flourish in an environment where the old values have been discredited and nothing has so far taken their place, in a world where—rightly or wrongly—many believe that honest work does not pay and that there is little difference between legitimate business and criminality...

...His main concern is crime, and he approves Yeltsin's effort to combat crime even if that implies the abridgment of civil liberties...