Itogi
I understand why Itogi had short-living but spread popularity at western Russian-centric political analytics, it fits the views and was readily accepted. But why do I exactly should pay attention to Aslund's rant? It’s not like I know nothing about Itogi's author, Nemtsov?
Liberal leader Boris Nemtsov (2007) commented upon the renationalization: It is offensive that under Putin the state has taken on the role of plunderer and racketeer with an appetite that grows with each successive conquest.
What remains of Putin's economic legacy is only that he was lucky to reap the benefits of the arduous but productive reforms his predecessor instigated in the 1990s (Milov and Nemtsov 2008).
Claims that Putin and his close friends have stolen billions of dollars from the state or private businessmen abound, but so far Putin has never reacted, which is evidence that he approves of such activities (Milov and Nemtsov 2008).
Let’s closer look at the person in question. Boris Nemtsov – Nizhniy Novgorod ex-governor (1995-97), longtime leader of SPS party, today one of the opposing leaders. At the time of his governorship he didn’t have any problems with fraud elections campaigns like Yeltsin’s in 1996, when everything was made in order to do not allow communist to win presidential campaign, but today he’s hypocritically building much of his rhetoric on supposedly “not fair” elections (be it parliament or presidential) and accusing everyone else in corruption (oh, the irony).
There’s more than enough compromising material on Nemtsov, e.g.:
- http://lifenews.ru/news/77529 (wide knowledge of Russian profanities is needed to understand this properly). He got butthurt over “bloody regime” dared to publish his private talks, where he slings mud at his closest allies in “opposition”, showing their undercover catfights in all their glory. Not a fake, already confirmed btw.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBTUbsvKEfg (the credibility of the recording is under question, though it's HIS voice, but knowing Nemtsov I readily believe). Here he's during his election campaign for Sochi's mayor, trying to sell Olympics to Koreans. Remember, the man accusing Putin of corruption or whatever ridiculous assumptions he made in Itogi about penthouses Putin owns, lol.
Aslund certainly seem to contrast “liberal” leaders with pro-Putin party accusing the latter of corruption etc. (at the same time making typical mistake, since here being “liberal” is a drastic difference of being liberal wherever else, if anything Putin is somewhat liberal according to classic definition). Yet he doesn’t see the irony of the situation nor from facts of Nemtsov’s past (see above), nor more importantly from the fact that Nemtsov is a flesh of the flesh of the system created after dissolution of the Soviet Union that only favors corruption (since it was the whole point of getting rid of SU by certain part of nomenklatura, i.e. in order to monetize their privileges Soviet system should be gone). The reason behind this is Aslund simply doesn’t know the history, or rather doesn’t understand the historical process behind all factual data he likely aware of after all.
This whole situation known under the metaphor “bees against the honey”.
But let’s put all this kompromat aside, to more important things, i.e. who is Mr. Nemtsov? Not so long time ago Illarionov perfectly described current Russian politikum in his what he called “syslibs” (system liberals) speech. Being syslib himself he knows what he's talking about. Long story short.
Syslibs are last survivors of “The Family” or rather it's last derivative, since strictly speaking only high level oligarchat belongs to “Yeltsin Family” (tight ties with the biz, formal influence over bureaucracy) – it's tier 1. The prime example is Berezovsky, who has a huge grudge over Putin, whom he created and who got rid of him eventually along with entire tier 1 (hence nationalization and Yukos case as a form of demonstrational trial, again the reasons behind all these are strictly political, Aslund doesn’t understand that). Tier 2 – “Moskowia” (big biz with close connections to the bureaucracy), Luzkhov-Baturina are prime examples, ex-mayor of Moscow, was kicked out of the office in 2010, replaced with functionary Sobyanin. And finally syslibs – tier 3 (complete bureaucrats, servants of tier 1 and 2). The prime example is Minister Kudrin (old pro-Gaidar team, the latter is used as a source by Aslund btw), yet another one who was kicked out of the office recently.
Who's Nemtsov? A typical tier 3. What's going right now? The final battle between pro-Putin party and Family remnants, tier 3. Putin is winning.
You can see the internal conflict showing up on the surface. If previously the TV was practically occupied by pro-liberal party forcing appropriate ideology clichés with little difference from glasnost times, since 2008 it has started to change slowly. In the late 2011 the new phase of media wars has begun and media bigwigs have started to take sides.
Let’s get back to aforementioned Nemtsov kompormat, he finds “Kremlin hand” in these publications. How valid his accusations are? Well, Gabrelyanov, the head of few yellow press outlets, including the LifeNews, which published most of the leaks, has connections to Izvestia, where he became a head of boards of directors in 2011. Izvestia is part of NMG (which includes 1st Channel, 5th Channel and REN-TV among others), NMG means Kovalchuk, Kovalchuk means Putin (lol, we’re getting close to “Ozero” conspiracy theory, but regardless of any theories, it’s fact that Kovalchuk and Putin are buddies). But if it's Putin, it doesn't mean that these outlets are strictly pro-Putin, since we’re talking about internal conflict and Putin doesn’t control everything. It's much more complicated.
For example, REN-TV was considered strongly anti-Putin, Echo of Moscow (belongs to GPM = governmentally funded) is outrageously and blindly anti-Putin, anti-governmental and anti-Russian in general. Well, at least before recent visit of editor-in-chief, Venediktov, to Kremlin, so he'd probably to reconsider his position eventually, lol. He receives his salary mainly from the budget after all. NTV, yet another GPM child, is known for its complex relationships with high authorities even after “Gusinsky case”, mostly because of its current CEO Kulistikov (ex-correspondent of Radio Liberty, which pretty much telling by itself, lol), yet it’s gone all loyal to Putin recently, while other moderate their rhetoric.
Other outlets like RBK (belongs to Prokhorov) or channel Dozhd (belongs to nobody Vinokurov, close buddy of recently kicked out of office Minister Kudrin) are on opposing side. And mind you, if you think that palm trees in Moscow in mid-December on Fox News is too much, you've never ever experienced an alternate reality of Dozhd. The lack of responsibility for whatever the bollocks they say is stunning.
So "Kremlin hand" is an outdated meme, Kremlin is not united, there're different conflicting parties, which is very typical for entire world today.
What is the place of Nemtsov and Itogi in all that mess? Not surprisingly at all, the corruption was used as prime weapon in media wars against UR party first (parliament elections) and Putin eventually (presidential elections). So practically the anti-corruptionists meme has transformed into anti-Putin in a matter of few weeks (who’d have thought, lol?).
Obviously, the story isn’t full without foreign players part, and they gone all berserk trying to force color revolution scenario. The funds were coming from different sources that could be traced down to two primary ones: US Department of State and London (aka Berezovsky) party (remember? tier 1). It’d be too tiresome to list all NGOs that were involved, but Nemtsov is affiliated in one way or another with half of them. DoS line is studied rather well up to exact figurants and paychecks for viral marketeers, sponsored publications, rallies etc., so do your research.
As for the Berezovsky part. Well, he currently resides in London together with his buddie, ex-terrorist, present prisoner of conscience, Akhmed Zakaev (which is not surprising too, since Berezovsky was the main banker of North Caucasian terrorism), currently through Belkovsky subsidizes “anti-corruptionist” Navalniy, pro-liberal opposing Strategy-31 movement and ultra-nationalists DPNI – wide varieties of completely incompatible ideologies. Why? As long as it's anti-Putin, it's ok, lol.
The problem though is a requirement for any color revolution is not a controllable crowd, but a controllable authorities, i.e. authorities should surrender under the pressure from both internal (crowd) and external (diplomatic and military). There’re more than enough examples of color revolutions in Eastern Europe in 2000s, in Georgia, and nowadays in Near East (Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia, Syria etc.). It didn’t work out here due to the lack of critical mass of controllable authorities. The drama was finished by visit of Kissinger, he came to negotiate, that’s his role.
With all that’s been said let’s get back to 2008, when the drama only entered its final phase, Nemtsov published his Itogi and Medvedev, on whom were placed hopes of internal and external opposing forces at the time, just won presidential campaign. Since Aslund doesn't understand the f**k out what's written above, so he interprets Itogi in his own way, i.e. Putin just got there in 2000, when “the successful transformation” was over. Since Nemtsov is not a complete dumbf**k like Aslund, he perfectly understands the situation, but what he's really trying to say in Itogi?
He’s reacting on growing popularity of Putin, realizing that syslibs are losing their grip fast. So he didn’t think of anything better but 1) star Perestroika-2 campaign in informational field with all the same clichés, 2) to cry out for help from outside – being a relatively small figure, he’s serving here merely as a delegate of a social and political group. Despite its limited popularity outside Russia, Itogi is even little known in Russia. The reason for this is from the beginning Itogi was aimed at another audience, at people like Aslund. The message here is to make connection between syslibs and external forces that willing to receive certain geschaft from potential game-changing situation. And Aslund willingly or unwillingly, purposely or unpurposely is providing such help on informational, propagandistic field. That’s what writing monkeys do :D
At the end of the day what we’re having here is crash of liberal ideology with completely f**ked up huge cart blanche Russian “liberals” used to have. Looking back, it was inevitable.
