Focus 580; Russia and Ukraine

This part of focus 580 will be talking about Russia we thought recently that it really had been quite a long time since we've had much discussion about Russia on the program and thought that it would be a good idea to talk a little bit about what has been happening in Russian politics recently and maybe do a little bit of an assessment of Mr. Putin and what sort of job he's been doing. Talking a little bit about Russia and its foreign policy its neighbors and certainly recently that has been getting some attention with regard to Ukraine. I would try to talk a little bit about that perhaps also talk about relations between Russia and the United States. And we have asked our guests to try to explore some of this territory this morning Diane conker. She's professor of history here at University of Illinois and she's editor of the Slavic review and has been interested in Russia for some time now. She's been good enough to come and spend some time with us this morning and also to answer questions. Now as always people who are listening are certainly welcome and invited to call them. And I know that she would do her best to respond to whatever questions people might have. The number here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free

800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Those are the numbers to call if you'd like to be involved in the conversation. We asked people of color as people just try to be brief and we ask that so that we can keep the program moving get in as many different people as possible. But of course anybody is welcome to come. Well thanks very much for being here. It's a pleasure to be here. I do. There's a lot that we can talk about and I guess I thought I might ask you to talk maybe in a general sort of way about Vladimir Putin and what has happened during the time that he's been running the country. On the one hand he has said that he was interested in modernizing Russia but he has been credited for making some moves to try to reform the economy and so forth at the same time. He's gotten a good deal of criticism for his method of operating for his way of dealing with anybody who would criticize or challenge his decisions. And a lot of people have said that in rather in some ways rather than taking Russian forward he's actually taken it backwards and moving

towards the kind of authoritarianism that we saw back when when the Soviet Union still existed. Having you know sort of said all that you can say something general about him and how he operates. Well I think Vladimir Putin is still kind of a mystery both to his own country people and to Western observers because even even the Russian experts are not quite sure how to predict where Putin is going next. He rose from obscurity he was picked to be the successor of Boris Yeltsin. He came from the KGB. He was young and energetic unlike Yeltsin who was old and often incapacitated. Putin is a modernizer. He wants to take Russia into the 21st century but he thinks the way to do that is to increase law and order and to increase government control over what huge an unwieldy and fractious country would still covers 11 time zones and almost one sixth of the globe so he's very definitely been taking

advantage of political opportunities to centralize power to reduce the power of the. The regions for example has just recently decided to appoint regional governors rather than have them elected. And he's enormously popular. There's a a youth movement that seems to support Putin and they run around Moscow with T-shirts with his his picture on it. I read recently that he's still 95 percent you know more liberal than 95 percent of the country so he's a he's a technocrat he's a moderniser and he's I think going along in a Russian tradition to identify power with an individual personality. When I was in Russia in May watch the state television channels which is all that's left now and is very much like watching television in Soviet times a lot of Putin doing his thing talking to ministers being official and very little discussion of any other kinds of problems or any any dissent or any deviation from Putin's line.

Well how do you how do we from our perspective we we don't think that's the way to operate but. How does want to say it was want to cesse what it really that that means and what that has meant for for Russia and well maybe another way of asking the question is Russia better off now than when Mr. Putin first became president. Better off you have to measure on a number of scales and it depends on who you ask but you know we value democracy and and freedom whatever that means. But we value that from a basis of 200 years of stability and a high standard of living. And when when democracy I'm putting that in quotation marks when democracy came to Russia in the early 90s it brought with it chaos and parties based on personality and people beating each other up in the Duma and and members of parliament acting like like

children. And by the mid 90s democracy was was a dirty word even for Russian liberals even for academics that I came in contact with because it had done nothing to stabilize a situation in the so-called Democrats done nothing to improve the economy. So there's not much of a. A constituency for the kind of democracy that we're used to. What Putin has done is stabilize the economy he's been I think helped by high oil prices out of the world economy what Russia's greatest resource is oil and gas and with the current high prices the economy is doing pretty well. And so this is help to raise everybody's standard of living made a larger but still small segment of the country very well off. And so they would say for sure we're better off now than they were 10 years ago. If you look at Moscow Moscow looks much more prosperous now than it did 10 years ago. But you don't see that the pockets of poverty and the the rural poverty that that still exists.

We have a caller who's been the patient here as when we go ahead and bring them in in Urbana line number one. Hello. Good morning. I may be asking you to simply restate what you've already said. But the question in my mind is how did that happen with Russian resources. A small relatively small population that could exploit it. They're not as well-off in terms of a growing economy and growth in material well-being as the Chinese. Everyone seems to say that you look to the next 50 to 100 years to the Chinese the dominant world power and it may be that they have as much perhaps fewer resources than the serial they have a much larger population and yet they seem to be accelerating. And the Russians

not. Am I simply misunderstanding the last 10 years and they're poised for a takeoff. Is there something fundamental in the Russian soul that makes it hard for them to be a world economic power but that even 50 years of. I'm going to stop the Chinese tradition of entrepreneurial ism. I don't want to be metaphysical about it. But why. Why so much Chinese now and not the Russians. Oh nothing. OK well I'm certainly not an expert on the Chinese so I can only talk to you about the Russian side. I think that the Russian the natural resources of Russia are quite different from China. They've always been able to exploit mineral resources oil resources and have relied on that kind of support for their economy. There's a knock on economist now at Harvard Andre Schleifer who argues that Russia today is a normal country compared to Brazil Argentina. She lay with the

countries of that standard of living. Gross domestic product has similar levels of corruption similar levels of growth. So it's nice to be compared to the right family and I think China is it is in a category by itself I would suppose because of its population. Largely but also a different agricultural basin basin opportunity. So it's not that Russia should be compared to the United States or or or China but with another tier of countries with which it ranks very well. I don't believe really in the Russian salt but I do believe that there is some Russian soul that determines the way the Russians proceed but there is a political culture and it's a political culture that's based on centralization and a fear of risk taking which discourages the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that we see elsewhere in China in South Asia and other countries like that.

Again other questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 our guest with us our focus Diane conkers She's professor of history at University of Illinois. But when some of the stories that we've heard over the past few years about struggles between Mr. Putin and other people who move in the circles of power in Russia. It seems that one of the things that we hear over and over again is that somebody who crosses Mr. Putin ends up in jail and he deals very harshly with anybody who seems to challenge him or get in his way. And one wonders now what we're looking at really some kind of a struggle between some old style anti-democratic dictatorial kind of leader and people who are interested in moving towards a more democratic kind of country or is what we're seeing essentially is struggles between a number of individuals who are essentially have the same kind of outfit I mean look I mean is this really a battle

between between the forces of democracy and the forces of anti-democracy or is this just a battle bit among people who are powerful and have become wealthy because of it and want to become even more wealthy and more more powerful and that's what that's what really people are fighting about. Well it depends on your point of view if your point of view is Putin's then the struggle is between the lawfully elected government on the one hand and robber baron oligarchy on the other who made their fortunes illegally by using the influence they had within the government taking advantage of the weakness of Russia at the time and are now trying to use this ill gotten gain to influence politics and also refused to share. By paying their fair taxes with with the population Khodorkovsky who's the oligarch who's currently on trial and in jail wants to present himself as a Democrat and defending entrepreneurial spirit and the freedom of Russia he also had a very

unsavory past in terms of his business practices before he reformed and decided to become a Democrat by newspapers and then it was when he tried to challenge Putin politically that charges were filed against him so nobody's really clean in this in this affair. The forces of democracy are elsewhere and their voice is very silent and they have very little public respect or public clout these poor liberal parties that have been around since the Gorbachev time are barely getting 5 percent of the vote in the national elections. I did see that in the in the paper this morning though that there is a new movement in Russia modeling itself after what's going on in Ukraine. It's not clear that these are really legal organizations but one is called the Ukrainian youth movement is called part of its time. And there is an organization called Red Pora or another one is called Orange Moscow. And this might be an alternative source of change and democratization with a real social base of the young upwardly

mobile educated. Students and young professionals who are feeling frustrated by the increasingly authoritarian machine. Another caller here next is Belgium. That's over by Danville line number four below. I don't I don't even want to report tournaments that was the face of a mistress but I don't think Mr. Yushchenko. Yeah. The relationship between what happened to him and this here we're talking about for anybody who's not sure he we're talking about Ukraine which was one of the things that we want to talk about here on the show because here we have a situation where we had two opposing candidates one that was sort of backed by the government and was said to be favored by Russia and then the opposition candidate Mr. Yushchenko he was the man who apparently was poisoned seemingly in attempt to perhaps knock him out of the election or at least cost him a lot of trouble. What about what is Russia's I guess the question if you know what is Russia's interest in

involvement in all of this. Good question. Russia I think again to try to see things from Russia's point of view they feel themselves increasingly surrounded by countries that used to be part of their sphere of influence who are now looking westward. And there's a competition between Russia and Europe for the loyalty of Georgia for example and Ukraine and Putin's. Some people say quite stupidly decided to openly support Nikolaevitch the government candidate for president who was also supported by the those in Ukraine who wanted to tilt more toward Russia. You should appeal more to those in Ukraine who wanted to be more European. Eventually join European Union European and all the senses of economic reform and rule of law and kind of a normal European society. What happened to you personally. He's now saying that he was poisoned in

fact by the head of the Russia of the Ukrainian security police who had very close working ties with the Russians. Successors to the KGB and then this is it looks like a clear illustration of somebody trying to thwart the election this is been part of the modus operandi of President Kuchma in Ukraine for some time he said journalists murdered who were opponents opposing him as well. The I'm for I'm sorry I should apologize the call I jump on your question. Did you want to follow up on this. You did a much better job and I take care of her right. Let's go to someone else here line one is Urbana. Hello good morning. You said earlier that Putin was a bit of a mystery man in his in his rise but basically that with the way the Russian government has been you know becoming to my mind an increasingly auth or a Tarion. How about that he is not a mystery at all once a KGB man always a KGB man. And then this

question for you after our president George Bush met with Putin he said he looked into the guy's soul. Well I'm not sure the guy has a schol but I would like your reaction when you first heard of President Bush's quote on that. And I hang up and listen. Well I thought that was an interesting way to evaluate a world leader. Sounded to me like Bush hadn't done his homework and was going to rely on. On what the Russians talk about as Soul and vibrations. I think I was also reminded of Margaret Thatcher's comment after meeting Mikhail Gorbachev. This is a man we can do business with and perhaps that's really what Bush meant but. But he wanted to express this in more mystical terms. As for Putin's KGB background you have to realize that the KGB has been one of the best funded most highly educated and before the fall of communism the most

westernized of the Russian administrations because they had to know the West in order to combat the West. So the KGB was a career path for really the best and the brightest So it's not so surprising that Putin comes out of the KGB and it doesn't necessarily predict that the KGB is any more authoritarian than somebody coming out of the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Internal Affairs who are all have a strong interest in preserving order and keeping down chaos and anarchy as they see it in the country. Well it was certainly we would have a certain kind of reaction to that it would be kind of like you know someone who like the former head of the CIA running for president and states you know we might have a certain visceral kind of reaction to that as far as the Russians are concerned it seemed like when he was when Putin was running. The first time that there was a lot of appeal to fight for this image of strength he was he was a tough guy he was a strong man as you said he. He was certainly younger then. Yeltsin seemed to be more vital. Have more on the

ball. But it seems that all that he was making this appeal to people that he was the guy who was who was going to deal aggressively with the problem areas aggressively with threats in Chechnya. You know he was he was the guy he was going to go when he was going to take care of this this problem. Now whether he has or not that's another thing but that would point to the fact that maybe for a lot of Russians his background would have would have been seen as a plus and they wouldn't react to it maybe quite the same way that we were. Well I would remind you that George H.W. Bush was head of the CIA. Yes and then your friend President you know you're a regular and we didn't see that as a problem at all. Some people didn't. But s s for Putin again I understand the context in which he came to power first we had this ridiculous Yeltsin presidency who was ill or incapacitated much of the time. There was also terrorism coming out of

Chechnya. There were apartment complexes that were blown up in Moscow and some people say it was the KGB that did that in order to make an excuse for cracking down on terror. But they have not been able to solve the Chechnya situation and terrorism is actually expanding in the North Caucasus rather than being eliminated. Its no longer reported on Russian television Russian news or there are accusations that when they do report what's going on in Chechnya they're falsifying successful raids when they are unsuccessful. So there's a real visceral fear in the part of urban Russians anyway that this is a very unsafe place and the Beslan massacre continued this and we know ourselves from our own experience that when terrorists strike it's it encourages more rigorous measures of law and order more fear more curbing of what we think of us as freedoms and rights to travel or even to speak

another color Chicago line for Hello. I told him we're right hope I'm not off track of this question. Going back 50 some odd years. One of the Clark one of the books that I read a history that I've read is part of a course in college was set up the attitude of I mentioned the attitude of the for the development of the Russians with regard to liberty and that sort of thing in the end the author stated the sensually that prior to World War One. There were already the beginnings of the development of a democratic organizations and that sort of thing particularly

in the villages. I haven't heard or read anywhere since that this sort of a development was taking place and if this is the case is there any is there remnants of this anywhere at all in Russia. Is it having any effect. Well there's there's been a democratic tradition in Russia in the village organization was it was a democratically run organization by the elders of the village for example Russia before 1917 the 1917 revolution was was an autocracy but it was an autocracy limited with an elected parliament after 19 0 5. So there was that democratic tradition when the Bolsheviks came to power they came to power as a democratically elected political party and in a kind of flawed election. And they also promised to democratize Soviet society so that workers elected their own factory committees and even managers and

there were elections to the Soviets. And throughout the history the Soviet Union there were elections with one party of course but elections none none the less so that there is that democratic tradition. But it has not been. Terribly effective at solving some of the key problems of Russia and so democracy seems to be a less important freedom than perhaps freedom from want. I think one of Roosevelt's four freedoms was freedom from want and the economic situation has been so dire in Russia both before the fall of communism and after that the kind of democracy we think of with two party system in campaigning and actual issues being developed that has not developed successfully and in Russia as Democrats here might like. Can I ask one more question your heart. Describe the situation that I got. I'm personally aware of one of my own. Ackles came to this country

from Russia in 1923 and I got into a short discussion with him about the situation in the 50s and 60s with respect to Russian communism and that sort of thing. Anyhow he remembered that at the time of the revolution August 1917 the first revolution the Mensheviks I think things were very tight and there was all sorts of secrecy and fear of the other secret police and that sort of thing when the Mensheviks came in for six months everything opened up that was no longer any more whispering and that that sort of thing. And then the Bolsheviks took over and the authorities clamped down and from then on things went from bad to worse. I just wanted to mention this because there was a period during the Mensheviks period when saying said to be.

Once the Russians are concerned. Well actually I've written a couple of books on that 1917 revolution so I know this this period pretty well and you're right that there was a period of openness and liberalism with a coalition government including the Mensheviks at the same time though the economic situation was deteriorating disastrously and crime was increasing exponentially. The army was falling apart and soldiers were just moving back in the cities and robbing people along the way. So there was also an all law and order problem at the time which is one of the things that convinced a lot of people that the Bolsheviks promise of order would be preferable to this kind of disorder that was taking place and the Bolsheviks promises about the economic situation to nationalize the land was seen to solve some of these economic problems. There's no question that the Bolsheviks did not care very much for democratic freedoms and had other items on their agenda. They did have a lot of support. It was not a cabal of.

Power hungry individuals there are a lot of Russians workers and peasants and soldiers who actually chose that more authoritarian path which they thought would better protect their standard of living and improve situation in the future. Thank you again other questions are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Our guest is Diane Congar. She's professor of history here at University of Illinois she is editor of the Slavic review and we're talking a bit about Russia and get people interested in joining the conversation you can do that. We touched a little bit on Ukraine just a moment or so ago and what's going on in Ukraine with the candidate of the government essentially the man who is the prime minister Mr. Unocal bitch. The struggle between him and Mr. Shanker who is the opposition candidate. And as far as the opposition is concerned they were one of their charges I think against the just sort of establishment candidate as this was the candidate it was backed by Moscow and that the Russians should just stay out of Ukraine

and not meddle. MR. I think the coverage for his part has been critical of the opposition because he says well the opposition is being backed and assisted by the United States. And I wonder to what extent. This might serve as an example of places where well maybe the interests of Russia and the United States are not aligned. Are there other examples that you can point to where that you can say yes on the one hand you know Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin are looking into each other's eyes and say these are guys we can deal business with and do business with and we have a common agenda fighting terrorism one of those sorts of things but in fact there are real cases where where are where the where America's interests and Russia's interests are are in conflict. Well I think in many cases Russia's interests and our interests are in conflict partly because we are both proud countries who are used to thinking of

ourselves as superpowers and neither country wants to play poodle to the other. So there is this tradition in in Russia that. Russia is a strong superpower and one might say that they're feeling the masculine aided by the breaking apart of various former parts of the Soviet Union and who are not remaining neutral but are somehow gravitating for one reason to another into the camp of the other. So that Ukraine with with this election is if you should go is elected and seems to be the majority of people want what you should go to be elected. Clearly moving towards Europe Georgia is another case in point where the Georgian president has actually lived in the United States before he came back there making deals to have pipelines carry oil to U.S. firms through Georgia as opposed through the Russian part of the North Caucasus in Georgia. Putin is trying to chip away at some of the border regions of Georgia the Republic of the. Region of Ahaziah is an area right now of

civil war and the Russians are encouraging to take out Russian citizenship. But having dual citizenship so that they. At some point to have a referendum and decide really they want to join with the Russian Federation on the other side. This is all part of the jockeying for power. There's also United States troops in the Central Asian republics as Rezin back to Stan a very authoritarian public in its own right which is part of our Afghanistan effort. So from the point of view of Moscow Moscow's being you know surrounded by a power that's been traditionally hostile to the Soviet Union and to Russia that is out to enhance its own economic well-being at the expense of Russia's competing for markets competing for loyal customers. So just geo politically as well as historically there is reason for for conflict between these two countries but there's also reason to cooperate and and Putin has continued to be cooperative on eliminating the threat taking control over the nuclear

material a nuclear weapon so he's still grown up in the world in this respect unlike some other world leaders one might think of. One of the things that. I guess I understand that there in Moscow that they're very concerned about is holding together holding Russia together continuing to hold it together and that they watched the old Soviet Union come apart and that they're sort of determined that Russia that the same thing not happen with Russia and the fact that you still we're talking about you know the Soviet Union was enormous while Russia's still pretty big and it covers an enormous amount of territory. And there are a lot of different different peoples who may indeed have some ideas about autonomy if not independence. And that that's one of the reasons why Russia has been so aggressive in Chechnya because they wanted to stay you know because when the Chechens declared independence the Russians said

no no we're this is just not going to happen because they want to make sure that not only were they talking to the Chechens but they're talking to anybody else who might have the same kind of idea. And and this if they were indeed setting an example of saying this is this is what's going to happen so if you're thinking about this don't. Just To what extent you know and we talked about how there is a lot of unrest and trouble in the Caucasus. But to what extent are there potential is there potential for that other places in Russia other other places where individuals might say you know we're really thinking about going our own way. And that that if that would be a concern to the government in Moscow I think the further fragmentation of the Russian Federation is is an issue in Russia. Soviet Union was a multiethnic state from the beginning. Ukraine is a multiethnic state. Bella Russia is an a multiethnic state this is a part of the world where there are a lot of different peoples and they're all mixed up and the promise of the Soviet Union was that the

economic development that was possible by uniting all these people would raise everybody's standard of living and they would be it would be possible to preserve one's local culture and yet partake of this modern technocratic educated state. And I think that that's the that's still the policy of the Russian Federation that that all all these ethnic groups they try to kill them you would be better off. These are autonomous republics inside the Russian Federation rather than being an independent country in your own Chechnya is an extreme case of this is had issues we might say with with the Russian empire going back for a lot of Tundras of years that the Chechen people were deported on Moscow by Stalin for being supporters of the Nazis during World War Two So they have particular grievances with the Russian government as well. One way that the government tried to sort of co-opt these these ethnics separatists was to move a lot of Russians into these areas.

So part of the conflict in Chechnya is a lot of Russian residents who are living in Grozny who are victims of this as well. So on the one hand they're being furious with with Chechnya as an example while at the same time they're trying to do positive things with with other larger groups more groups more willing to go along. They're also taking advantage of the worldwide war on terror to do what they like in Chechnya as well. And Putin going back to the earlier question in one of the reasons for Putin was so popular was he promised to very vulgar terms to crackdown on Chechen terrorism. It's just not clear to me in the 21st century whether military force alone is possible sufficient to crack down on terrorism in Chechnya or elsewhere. Well that I guess that that again invites some question about maybe the relationship between Russia and the United States and you know in the extent to which the United

States would like to suggest to Mr. Putin that he'd either do something or not do something and this seems to be a particular case where he he said the United States and sort of using the war on terror as leverage he said look you've got your terrorist I have mine. I'd like to tell you what to do with yours don't you tell me what to do with mine so any attempt United States to suggest maybe he was misjudging a policy was not right. He just said you know go mind your own business. How does one characterize the relationship now between the United States and and Russia. Well I think. At one level I think in the State Department and in other agencies there's a working relationship with Russia and there's certainly lots of ties and connections and in terms of the business community as well I think head to head the relationship is much more fragile because Putin especially with this recent intervention in Ukraine is clearly trying to project his power in a way

that he hadn't before and there is a sense that the United States would like to see Russia as being irrelevant on the world stage that the invasion of Iraq could be carried out without any worry of a reaction from Russia and that's offended the Russians as well who want to be players on the world stage. So this this is a tension that that's going to continue. I mean when this happened under Gorbachev Gorbachev used Europe as a kind of foil against the United States you know medo made openings to to Germany for example and France. I don't see Putin doing that right now. Which is. Curious because there is such a division between the United States and its European old European allies these days. Well this is this may indeed be more a question about American American foreign policy but obviously when the Cold War ended the place of Russia

its significance in American foreign policy certainly changed it's not not what it was as we started to pay much more attention to the Middle East and to the east Asia and to China and to North Korea and so forth. That's not to say that Russia doesn't matter but it it seems like it doesn't matter as much as it did so in what way now. As far as the United States is concerned what how much does Russia matter. How much does Russia matter that's that's a good question I think. The calculations in Washington have been that Russia doesn't matter. Be interesting to see what happens with Congolese Rice as secretary of state because her professional background is as a specialist on the Soviet Union and on the Soviet military. And so she has a certain hardline take on Russia but I think she too would like to

minimize the importance of Russia. And one could imagine that the U.S. policy would be undertaken to strengthen the Ukraine's in the Georges in the Moldova at the expense of Russia. The expansion of NATO is what is part of this. And. Probably could do this with impunity because there is no real flashpoint for Russia to claim its what it thinks is its rightful place on the world stage. Complicated areas might take place with Korea and China Russia also borders on Korea and even has a significant korean minority So there actually is a role for Russia to play in working with the North Koreans on a transition there on curbing nuclear arms there but I think it's possible to draw a big circle around Russia and say Russia doesn't matter. It's not a safe place to invest. We just don't have to worry about Russia anymore.

We have about 15 minutes left we had an last bit of the program here. Let me get entries our guest unconquered She's professor of history at University of Illinois editor of the Slavic review. You have questions. Call us 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Just a moment ago you talked about the Natal expansion that's again one of the big things that has happened since the end of the Cold War as some countries that were or were part of the Warsaw Pact became part of NATO and even more recently we have some states that were actually part of the Soviet Union like the Baltics have have come into NATO. Clearly it seems that when there was discussion of about this first round of expansion that the Russians sort of said well we're not happy about this but it was clear that they really couldn't do anything about it. Just how is is this the fact that these states that

either had been within the Russian sphere you know those things they call the near abroad. Or actually had been part of the Soviet Union now becoming part of NATO and becoming more allies are making this move to become more allied. In many different sorts of ways both in terms of politics and security concerns and economics which I think is what a lot of these countries are really interested in establishing ties with Europe I mean does that really how how how much does that upset the Russians. I think initially it upset them a lot. The expansion of NATO it was was clearly something out of great concern. They seem to be more accepting of this now and but I think that the struggle is going to be over markets. Russia itself is a big market for Eastern European manufacturers who maybe can't crack the European market so there's still a lot of economic ties and an opportunity for economic cooperation. So that's on the positive side for for stability.

And hopefully that will continue to add to Milly rate the situation because I think Russia has recognized that it can't really change the expansion of NATO and the outcome might be to sort of renegotiate what NATO stands for so that it's not not perceived to be such a threat. We have some of the callers let's talk with someone listening this morning in Charleston. Point number four. Hello. Yes I've been listening with interest. Your guest has alluded to all the things pre and post Cold War and the events in the world since then and the triumphalism of Western money. It appears to me that there is nothing that has been said either this morning or internationally or around the world that the disease of capitalist imperialism

and how that works. Everything falls under that agenda. Everything is dictated by that the man who shall be supreme who shall be the largest of edge of homes. Is it going to be the conflict as always you know the nineteenth and twentieth century all full of wars that to them that kills millions and millions of people and destructive to almost obscenity over markets and money and domination and those things that in my opinion have driven the world just to insanity. The things that we have now witnessed and then didn't. And lastly the fact that that the triumphalism over the fall of communism which there was no communism in Russia ever goes that revolution was short circuited. Made to be secondary even at its height. What does humanity propose to

do about the imperialistic nature of our economic system. Oh I take my answer off the air thank you very much. A lot of what sort of response you can offer. Well I think one of the positive roles that the old Soviet Union played was to provide an alternative economic model to the capitalist model and whether And I think also that that encouraged the rapacious so-called rapacious capitalists to clean up their act. And with with the absence of an alternative I think it does allow capitalists to be a little more unbridled and unchecked and this might be part of what the struggle in Russia over Yukos is all about is the government trying to re nationalize this oil company typified provide an alternative and to curb what they see as the unchecked power of capitalism. Well let's go to the bonus I believe next caller or no sorry that called Jane's Mom will go to Bloomington Indiana playing to yellow.

Let me ask about Russia's economic prospects specially you just mentioned Yukos. And it looks as if the Russians are simply trying to mash and allies a successful business. And then here we have to the to the east of Russia China which is growing. It's allowing business enterprise to flourish and they're growing very fast. America is growing our our our our economy is growing. Europe is not growing but there sits Russia I mean is Russia just going to be left behind. With with with China growing rapidly to the east of them and we're growing into the west of them what are they doing. They're seizing their businesses. How can how can they grow. This is a good and timely question sinew Cosas is undergoing bankruptcy and is also on the auction block. I think what's going on in the Kremlin is that there is an attempt to take back control over the leading sectors of the economies that

they don't fall not only into private hands but into foreign hands. And so it looks like Yukos is going to be bought up with a large part of Yukos is going to be bought up at bargain basement rates by what's already the state owned gas company Gazprom. And the phrase for this is that the government will control the commanding heights of the economy will allow entrepreneurial spirit to proceed. Other economic levels and between the two of them they'll be incentives for growth but also mechanisms for controlling unbridled growth and particularly unchecked foreign investment into Russia. If you were if you were a Russian businessman having seen the government just seize you cause you wouldn't you wouldn't be too eager to put a great deal of effort into. Go into business knowing the stock market in Russia is falling as as a result of this and I think the government has to take this in mind the government cannot get back into the business of central planning the economy that did not work. But there is a sense that the

government has to have some stewardship over the economy. And the next months and years are going to be another period of struggle over how best to raise the standard of living and raise the economic level of Russia. Thank you. All right. No I think were going to go to the bonus line for I think. Yes. The previous caller talked about the disease of imperialism but it appears that the more I read into this is and what I understand countries on the verge of being decimated. The aid situation in Russia is tremendously serious. Its part of a much larger public health crisis all together since the 1980s the life expectancy of Russian men and women particularly men has been falling. AIDS is is rapidly spreading and. The low level of economic development has made there's been very little investment in medicine in

hospitals and in preventive public health this is one area where non-governmental organizations are actively working inside of Russia to try to publicize awareness about AIDS and to try to to work from the bottom to stop this stop the spread of the seven epidemic. But it's a huge demographic and social problem there's no doubt about that. And apparently the government itself is trying its best to shove it under the rug. This is true to some extent the the the reaction in Russia is once again not to admit problems if one can help it so certainly on the state television there's less concern about AIDS than there is in the press and that there is on the Internet. But I think one I maybe I should just mention one thing that's really changed from from the Cold War days is the Internet. And even if Putin cracks down on state television it's possible for those with access to get a lot of different sources of information and

that is really kind of the one of the checks and balances of this new system. All right thanks for the thank you. Well that gets another dimension that perhaps we haven't talked about and we have talked about a little bit about economic issues and some politics and foreign policy but but this gets into the idea of things that would come under the heading of other very significant challenges that Russia faces in in the future. Well generally health specifically aids are there other things like that. Well there is that standard of living in Russia is is still extremely low and what's happening right now is a huge disparity between those who are very rich and well-off and sort of live in European standards of living and those who are very poor and who really have no prospects. The minute there's a law in the parliament now to raise the minimum wage to $20 a month. Whereas those with a European standard of living make a thousand dollars a month or two thousand dollars a month so this is this huge disparity these people are living in the same society life

chances for those at the lower end of the spectrum are decreasing. They're that they're the ones with the health problems. And this was one of the the problems that provoked the 1979 revolution with the great disparities between rich and poor. And this is this is something that the government has to keep in mind again. Well with almost what we have to finish I guess this is a difficult question but I mean for people who unlike you who are completely absorbed in Russia its history and its politics if we were watching it or watching what happens here over the next couple of years what's what's an important thing to watch for or how do you know how do we try to understand what is going on there and try to understand it more from a Russian perspective rather than from an American right. I think the thing to watch for is what happens with Putin and the elections and the Russian constitution there are some people who say Putin is becoming increasingly authoritarian moving towards a kind of fascist regime which is a modernizing

economic regime but one that is very controlled politically. Putin is a two term president there are term limits in Russia. There's He explicitly said Constitution Day last week he's not thinking about changing the Constitution. But in fact there is talk about him changing the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. If the political parties of the liberals are outlawed if these new orange movements are cracked down on the grounds of terrorism one could see creeping fascism coming to Russia one that would promote economic growth and promote the local capitalists but increasingly cut back freedoms. And whether this affects us or not directly I think it would be a very sad thing for world culture. Well I think there will leave it for this time around with our thanks to our guest ion conker She's professor of history here at the University of Illinois. Thanks very much. Very very welcome.