Понимание России 2

[clement]

A definition: Krysha is an informal personal relationship with such person or persons that are seen as being able to protect one from
trouble by placing one in an extra-legal environment, the only environment where one, normally restrained by laws and regulations,
often created solely in order to restrain, could act. Thus, krysha primarily means protection from that which impedes one's initiative,
and, coming close second after criminal extortion, it is the law that is seen as a major impediment. But the extra-legal environment (in which
one both hides from the law and fends off the assaults of criminals) is troublesome and undefined, and no krysha can afford consistent
protection. Then there is always a relationship between one and one's krysha, a relationship that is always extra-legal, and cannot be
formalized. Here, a conflict concerning the length to which the parties should go on behalf of one another can seldom be avoided. Thus,
having a krysha often leads to dependency, from which there is no escape.

Here is one example of how a krysha can help and why it is so necessary. If someone owes you money and refuses to pay it back, you
cannot go to the State Arbitration Court and wait for more than a year for your case to be resolved. So, you either do not get the money, or
you go to your krysha or to freelancers specialized in ''settling accounts'' (these guys will then be entitled to something like 50% of the take).
That is how you get your krysha to talk to the debtor's krysha (and this is the most professional and businesslike meeting there is in Russia). If
the decision is not reached, both kryshas appeal to higher criminal authorities. If that does not help, then sometimes they shoot at each
other. But usually a decision is reached. In this respect, we must note that while the official legal system
is slow, vague and ill-defined, incompetent, has no performance incentive, is a ready subject to corruption, guarantees nothing, and
exposes one to the tax authorities, mafia justice is fast, well-defined, relatively more professional, actually collects debts, and hides the
proceeds from the taxman. Thus, it is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of businessmen work under the mafia.
The fact that official justice is losing out to mafia justice has significant implications for the future of this country. Mafia controls the 21
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banking system because no one else can get the delinquent loans repaid. But the mafia is not just competent private accounting firms.
The interest rate that mafia charges on its debts is about one percent a day, compounded. Failure to pay entails confiscation of property,
kidnapping, subjugation and enslavement for life, or murder. Russian mafia is the cruelest criminal organization of them all, and yet it is the
only effective law enforcement organization in the country!

Case Study 8. The most important kind of informal personal relationship is one, where one side (or both) has compromising material
on the other. In his memoirs, Yeltsin matter-of-factly recounts how he found out that the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs took an enormous
bribe. Having found it out, Yeltsin decided that the guy should... stay in office. It was thought that now, having been hooked, the guy would be
more loyal. The amazing thing is that neither Yeltsin, nor his editors realize that it makes for startling reading. Criminal relationships are no
longer hiding from the establishment, they are the establishment and the highest officials discuss affairs of state using the criminal argot
developed in Russian prisons while thinking the thoughts of pickpockets and having a mugger's dream. Stalin destroyed the culture of Russia
and created the culture of forced labor camps. Khrushchev swung the gates of the camps open, and now the culture of the camps is the
mainstream culture of Russia.

We noted that a major distinguishing feature of Russian society is its softness, that is its lack of technique. Russian society is a swamp.
It changes while remaining the same, and thus survives everything. It appears to be easy to defeat, and that makes it invincible. Every
definition of a Russian social phenomenon must pass the test of softness. Our definition of krysha passes this test, and thus might be
correct.
INFORMAL PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
We must always remember that the fabric of Russian society is woven out of informal personal relationships, and that these informal

personal relationships refuse to be based on social technique. Russian society is a society of constant indirect negotiations, negotiations
practically without rules, negotiations that only appear to be based on (vague) precedent or tradition.
What are these informal personal relationships like? In the West, people go to a party where often most people do not know each other,
and there they mostly engage in small talk. In Russia, people socialize differently. They get together in a small circle of friends, where no one
is present without a ''recommendation'', and almost immediately start talking about something deeply meaningful to them. The Russians know
that they have a friend when someone tells them, ''You idiot, I hated the way you behaved last night, I did the same thing myself about a
month ago and only recently did I realize how stupid I was to do something like that''. It seems that a Russian cannot become your
friend until he calls you an idiot: but he calls you an idiot not because he wants to hurt you (he knows you can take this and more) but
because he wants you to get better. Here, it is not the offensive language that is a problem (in so doing, your friend simply underscores 22
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that the relationship between you and him is already informal, that is, strong and meaningful), but the fact that you can never be good
enough. Again. What is the message hidden in an act of calling someone
an idiot, while giving him deeply thought-out and heartfelt advice? It points to the depth of relationship that can withstand offense, sincerity,
and self-exposure. In other words, there exists not an official relationship, but an informal one. Here is one of the reasons why
Westerners do not get along with Russians as well as they could. Drinking coffee around a coffee table creates an official atmosphere,
drinking vodka or going to a steam bath together creates an unofficial one. But neither of these two ways to meet should be mistaken for an
informal personal relationship, and business still remains practically impossible to conduct. To deal with Russians, you have to talk to them,
''really talk'', as many Westerners now call this process. And this might be hard for you, as it seems that some Westerners do that rarely
indeed. In Russia, however, it is an absolute requirement: you must show yourself as a person, not as someone acting in an official
capacity. When the conversation is already on, you may, cautiously at first,
lest your counterpart be startled, mention something personal. If there is a response, then you will soon find yourself talking about your
desires, problems, family, listening to your counterpart doing likewise, give and solicit advice, and when you find yourself not looking at your
watch, then you might have something that can start a relationship. Only then it pays to really start talking business. And it is not the
environment that matters: vodka and baths help, but the coffee table is also possible, as long as the parties forget about coffee and take their
jackets off, as long as they stop behaving like strangers and start talking as friends.
Note that while in the West there exists a principle of abstract professionalism whereby a physician treats you to the best of his ability
no matter who you are, in Russia, to be treated well you have to be a "good person": instead of a professional approach, there is a personal
one. Russians think that they cannot be your friend unless they think
that you want to achieve greatness and are strong enough to take criticism to achieve this lofty goal. That is why Russians actually
consider harsh criticism to be friendly. In Russia, even an executioner can consider himself as a friend of his victim as he is simply putting
someone clearly incapable of achieving greatness out of their misery. All right, you have a network of informal personal relationships.
What would be the implications of that for your rights?

Case Study 9. In a country as poor as Russia, you would assume that people would be very serious about money. They are indeed serious
about it, especially considering that many Russians are now in business for themselves and that no Russian citizen can count on the help of the
state in case of unemployment, illness, or retirement. (Well, all right, there is a retirement pension, but it is so small that only a Left-Handed
Master could see it). And yet, Russians are still much more serious about their informal personal relationships that they are about money.
And it is not because they are being altruistic (though many are): it is because the informal personal relationships are much more important 23
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than money, being the source all the real money comes from. And how do you sign a formal contract with the one whom you want to have as a
friend, how do you negotiate price with such a person? The answer is that you don't.
Most deals are done on the basis of a vague verbal agreement, where both sides appear actually to be embarrassed to bring any
formalities into the process. Amazing as it may be, this is one of the major factors that contributed to an enormous crisis brought about by
failure of almost everyone to pay anyone else. The combined debt that enterprises owe each other amounts to trillions of rubles, and a
significant part of that is not supported by proper documentation. Another side to it is that failure to pay becomes not a business
occurrence but a personal insult. And many people feel that personal insults justify murder.

THE RUSSIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS LAW AS EXPRESSED BY PUSHKIN
We talked about the law and limits to its applicability, about informal relationships, and the sorry fate of the Swiss Machine Tool... .
Is it possible to bring it all together? Here is a poem by Alexander Pushkin that explains it for us.
Pushkin lived during the first half of the nineteenth century (1799-1837), and thus could not have written about Russia as it is today. But
he did not have to: most Russians agree that in his writings Pushkin succeeded in capturing and describing the Russian soul, writing about
Russia as it has always been and is likely to remain. Quoting from Pushkin, especially from a poem as important as this one, is like
quoting directly from the Russian soul. As I could not find this poem professionally translated, I decided to translate it myself. The rhyme is
gone, but the meaning is as close to the original as I could make it. Here it is:

From Pindemonti
I have little use for those loudly proclaimed rights That sent many a head spinning.
And I do not regret that Gods denied me That precious opportunity to dispute taxes
Or interfere with struggles of rulers. I could not care less if the press is free to fool the idiots
Or if a censor limits the empty talk of the newspaper pages. All this talk of rights is but meaningless words.
I cherish very different rights, the ones that are much better. I sorely need another kind of freedom:
To depend on the rulers or to depend on people --What difference does it make? I do not care for either.
To report to no one, to serve and cater to no one but myself; To never compromise my conscience, change my plans, or bend
my neck For powers-that-be or to get a position.
To roam here and there as I please, enjoying the beauty of nature,
Becoming ecstatic from seeing art, appreciating fruits of inspiration -- 24
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Here is what I call happiness, here is what I call rights. (1836)
Trans. by Matthew Maly
This poem exactly captures the prevailing Russian attitude towards rights, laws, state building, and state service. If we dare to
assume that the expression ''appreciating fruits of inspiration'' includes, but certainly is not limited to, the process of getting inebriated --then
the poem seems to be a perfect one, indeed. ''To report to no one, to serve and cater to no one but myself'' --
remember the banana peel? The problem is that while this kind of freedom may be perfect for someone as responsible and well-meaning
as Pushkin, Russia is a country of angry, destructive, and ill-mannered slaves, and a country of unrestrained envy.
Most Russians have always lived in chains, under strict external control. As a consequence, they had no need to develop internal
controls, to submit to (fair and reasonable) laws voluntarily. Internal control makes a person law-abiding even when he or she is alone. Here,
all controls have always been external. A Russian is reluctant to ask the legislature to pass a law: it
would seem as if he wants protection, implying that he is weak, and also implying that the others are equally weak. Thus, there is either
lawlessness or dictatorship (and these always go together). That makes the Rule of Law something very foreign to Russia.
And of course, there is always the problem of submission to technique: instead of technique there have always been leg irons and a
whip. The law in the Western sense of the word is a technique, and thus is seen as an impediment, as something that one wishes to get rid
of, something that one would loath to submit to. Thus, the law becomes just another flea that cries out for horseshoes, another Swiss
Machine Tool or a boring formal encounter, a Monday afternoon in the hospital in the City of N.,--in a word, something as embarrassing as a
well-made suitcase. The idea that dictatorship and lawlessness always go together
needs to be especially emphasized, particularly as many people here now want the return of ''Stalinist'' rule, claiming that then it was
possible to achieve ''order''. External order, yes, very much so. But not the real order, order that comes from within. That is why, under Stalin,
beneath the thin veneer of ''order'', there was an absolute madness that caused extreme inefficiencies even when efficiency was earnestly
meant. For example, many people were arrested and shot by mistake, even though the lists were supposed to be checked. (Note that it was
not by accident that I chose efficiency in extermination as my example). Order is an internal thing, and neither a good law nor a bad one could
bring order to Russia. Only the law ''of the people, by the people, and for the people'' can do that. And for that, people must get organized,
elect their true representatives, pass the laws that fit the situation, and live by these laws. All of the above is still to happen, starting with
grass-roots organizations that have not appeared as yet.
LAWS IN RUSSIA VS. LAWS IN THE WEST
The body of laws that exists in Russia cannot be considered law similar to that which exist in the West. Russian ''laws'' do not enjoy 25
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popular support, and thus cannot be effectively applied. That is why, in case of a conflict between a particular individual and the law, the
representatives of the law need first to enter into negotiations with the krysha of the individual in question so as to determine this particular
individual's fate. Thus, these ''laws'' act not as real laws, but as a ''super-krysha'', with which everyone negotiates and which is ready to
negotiate either on behalf of, or against, everyone. It is the relationship of your personal krysha with other kryshas
that determine your fate in Russia. In the West, the law can be seen as an apartment building in
which we all live. We each have four walls, a floor and a ceiling, a door to which only we have a key. Hence, we do not have to wear any armor
when we are home. The Russians do not live in such a building: they must, like turtles, carry their protective shell with them. The shell does
provide protection, and the totality of these shells weighs no less than the concrete that went to build the apartment building. Russia is a
legalistic society where disputes are being solved and an order is being maintained. But it is done in a way that has no resemblance to the way
it is done in the West. For a turtle, the idea of living in an apartment building with the rooms that are the same for all means losing one's
own distinctive shell, and without it a turtle feels very uncomfortable. An average Russian still thinks that the idea of having one law for
all is the dream of a total loser. ''If you want to help me, tell me how to break the law and get away with it. ''
There is something, however, that is being followed quite strictly, but this is not the law: it is an instruction. Remember, we referred to
something one gets to learn by divine means. An instruction is an oral (or a written, but not widely published) piece of advice on what one
should actually do in such and such a situation. In other words, it is a piece of advice on how to work your way around the law in a way that
would not displease the Supreme Deity (not the President, mind you, not the Presiding Judge, not the Law, not the Policeman standing in
front of you, but the Supreme Deity, the One Who Has The Power Over That Particular Problem.) In Russia, you will always be searching for this
mysterious person: a salesgirl, a plumber, or whoever else. Remember, that it is a person who, no matter how low his position in society,
recognizes no man-made authority over him. To a Russian, it seems stupid that a Western plumber strictly follows an Instruction Manual for
Plumbers. A Western plumber can get a heart attack seeing that his Russian counterpart strictly follows nothing whatsoever but his own
(drunken) whim. Where, oh where, is the person in charge, the one who will listen to your plaintive prayer and will deign to take your humble
offering? How happy you will be when you finally find him or her, and woe to you if you don't.
If you strictly follow the letter of the law you are quite likely to get in trouble, because the only goal of the System of Laws is to
prevent you from doing anything, and the preventive blend of laws is so strong that it really feels as though the government earnestly considers
you able to move mountains with a push of your hand. But if you strictly follow instructions, you have a good chance of
surviving or even prospering, unless and until those who gave you these instructions decide to get rid of you, in which case they always have an
option of putting you in prison for breaking the law. Suppose you are a bureaucrat and do not take bribes (and thus do
not have any spoils to share with your superior). If your superior does 26
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not like that (after all, he has to share his spoils with his own superior) then you go to prison on a trumped-up charge (the relevant Russian
saying goes, ''Show us a suspect, and we'll find a crime that he is guilty of''). If you follow the unspoken instruction and do take bribes (and give
your superior a nice gift according to an unspoken rate), you may do fine, indeed, or you may end up in prison for bribery (and how indignant
your superior will be, corruption being so repugnant to him.) If you follow the instructions you can live well, but you are always
suspended, you are flying, and yet you are on the leash, you fly above the heads of others, but can hit the ground hard.
There is yet another very important feature. A Western law is ''hard'' as it is predictable, straightforward, and all-encompassing. By
contrast, Russian law is based not on the written law (though one does exist) and not on precedent or tradition, but on the whim of the
stronger party. This makes Russian law unpredictable, that is ''soft''. As Russian law is soft, the punishment is made three times harder that the
one that would fit the crime, just in case you succeed in using the softness of law in your favor. It is always the soft law that hits the
hardest.
WHY DO RUSSIANS HAVE NO RIGHTS?
The problem of rights is indeed a crucial one. You notice that in the West individuals have rights while in Russia they have none. Why is

it so? In the West, human life is seen as human, not divine, and yet, being human, this life is still precious, unique, even sacred. Human life
is respected in itself, and therefore we are not embarrassed to admit that a human being is not omnipotent. A person need not be great, but
can be respected being average or small. And if so, a human being can demand that society protect him, and would actually be accorded the
protection he needs. This protection is given to him permanently, in a form of inalienable rights.
Note that political and economic rights are more important to those who are weak and small as the strong could do what they want anyway. In
the West, all people, whoever they might be, are deemed worthy of rights, and no one comes out claiming that because some people seem
to be weak enough to actually need their rights, they are unworthy of consideration.
But in Russia, if you are small and weak, you are only fit to be discarded. Here, human life is given no protection: either you can
overcome any obstacle (in which case you are God) or you are given no consideration whatsoever and no one would really understand why lowly
beings (themselves included) should be given any consideration. And it is not just that your life that is not valued by others, but that others do
not value their own lives, and thus cannot be asked to value your life any higher than they value their own. You cannot demand consideration
from those who give no consideration to themselves. In Russia, the goal of becoming godlike is an unquestioned
absolute, and thus common people deserve to have no consideration even in their own minds, and have no self-respect at all. In
Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment the protagonist, a young man named Raskolnikov, asks, ''Am I a miserable creature or do I have the
right? '' The right that he meant, of course, was the right to calmly kill other ''miserable creatures'', as he could think of no other right. But let
us reread this question as it holds the key to the problem we are 27
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discussing. ''Am I a miserable creature or do I have the right? '' Please note this ''or'' very well: in the West one can be a miserable creature
indeed but still would have the same rights as all the others. It is to ''miserable creatures'' that the rights are granted, so that all of us can
enjoy them. In Russia, you either are a miserable creature or you have the right (to kill).
Again, in Russia, a law-abiding society is not taking root because miserable creatures are not deemed to be worthy of anything, and do
not themselves consider that they deserve or need any rights, either because they still hope to prove their godlike nature, or because they
have miserably failed to so. This points to the problem that would most severely handicap
Russian democrats. In the West, it was the bourgeoisie who grew strong enough to demand, and to be granted, the rights that they
needed. In Russia, that would appear a contradiction: if you are strong, then why do you need rights? Doesn't your strength allow you to do
anything anyway? To receive rights, you need to get stronger, but once you are stronger, why do you need rights? The Russian struggle is not
for universal rights, but for exceptions. One only wants to say, ''No one can but me. ''
This example is unfair to Yeltsin in terms of the actual political situation, but it is perfect in general: Who has the right to burn the
Parliament Building down? Yeltsin has such a right because he is a President. Compare that to Clinton, who is much more tightly controlled
than an average Joe. Or the opposite side of the very same coin: the former Acting
Attorney General once said, ''I am all for violating the rights of suspected criminals''. (And he remained in his position for more than a
year after that.) Here is his logic: what rights can you hope to have if you are even less than an ordinary citizen, a criminal suspect? Tell this
Acting Attorney General that the rights were invented specifically for crime suspects --and watch him have a heart attack.

THE RUSSIAN CONCEPT OF LEGAL PRECEDENT
Remember our comparison of the map of Holland and the map of Russia? In Holland it was hard to hide, and people knew each other.

And what about the surrounding areas? The Dutch had to deal with the Spaniards, the French, the Germans, or the British, and all of them were
Western Europeans, essentially similar to one another. People were ''stuck'' in the middle of a homogeneous society, in which they all were
destined to live. It seems that this certainty of living in the midst of this particular people in this particular way, contributed to the
establishment of the concept of legal precedent. But throughout Russian history the situation was the opposite. You could run away in
every direction, and ''over there'', in this vast emptiness, the legal situation was undefined. Who could you be if you came out of this
emptiness? Depending on the direction, you could have come from peoples that were totally different one from the other. If you came from
the West -you came from Poland or Germany; in the East, there were Tartars; in the South -there were the Turks, in the North -there were
the Swedes. In Siberia, there were the northern tribes, and you could even reach China. Depending on the direction, your environment would
have been very different, and that would affect your character, expectations, behavior. That is why there was no notion of precedent, 28
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and thus no concept of law. Each Russian was dealt with as if he were an Ambassador: who are you, where do you come from, whom do you
know? The Dutch shared their small country with the other Dutch and
gradually developed a sense of community, became a people. In Russia, it did not happen. No Russian lives on his land: they came here from
somewhere and stayed on it as unwelcome guests, afraid of being chased away by the real owners, owners that somehow never come. In
Russia, a particular family can live in the same village for ten centuries, and never once would they think of repairing a road, planting a tree,
digging a better well: the land is not theirs. Not for a second were they able to touch it with the soles of their feet and feel the sense of
ownership. It is not surprising that a Russian was the first man in space: the entire country lives in space, and has always done so.
Concerning the connection between law and particular territory, note that crime suspects are always physically restrained, attached to a
place where they will be tried: if you wear leg irons you know that you are here, and thus, must submit to the local law. In Russia, the law
lacked this geographical component, you had to bring it with you, in a form of a letter that certified who you were.
If in Holland the legal precedent is how an entity was dealt with before (regardless of what entity it was), in Russia, everyone is his or
her own legal precedent. An old Russian saying has it, ''Treat everyone according to his dress. ''

In Russia, everyone creates his or her own legal environment. The only law is who you are, how much you pay, whom you know, and with
whom you happen to deal at the moment.
If the Parliament Building was burned down, it does not mean that you can do that: become a President of Russia, and then do as you
please. Note that the problem is not limited to a legal vacuum, there is
also a cultural one. I cannot recall a Russian writer who wrote with approval about honest work directed towards personal enrichment. For a
cause of universal brotherhood, for the sake of revolution, for others --you could work, as long as this work was selfless; but working for
oneself was a sin. The only capitalist described in Russian literature was Chichikov, a swindler whose belated discovery of morality struck
the author, Gogol, as utterly false. And this was before the seventy years of Communist propaganda!

THE STALINIST TRANSFORMATION OF RUSSIAN SOCIETY
Lenin and Stalin wanted to build a Communist society, that is, to create a new man who could live under Communist rules. Thus, their

goal was to create a Soviet Man, a human being that was to be morally and even physically different from the rest of humanity (recall that
Hitler also wanted to create an Aryan Nation). Now you know the answer to the question, ''What was the only
product of the Soviet economy? '' Do one thing fast and one thing slowly. Answer fast: "The only product of the Soviet economy was the
Soviet Man. '' Now do one thing slowly: think about your answer. It does not seem right: everyone knows that Soviet economy also produced
grain, shoes, tanks, diamonds --the lot. But let us look at a Western 29
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car factory. Trucks filled with food enter the gates, thousands of overalls are produced, news about a rock concert generates excitement.
Do cars like rock'n'roll? The answer is obvious: the plant produces nothing but cars, and then there are secondary products that make
production of cars possible. A hamburger bun is one such secondary product. But we would never say that GM makes hamburger buns. The
same with the Soviet economy: No, it did not make shoes; no, it did not make tanks. It produced only one primary product to which its entire
productive capacity and its entire productive process were geared, and the product was called the Soviet Man. Note that Hitler also felt that all
Germans should die if Germany lost the war.

Case Study 10. Here is an example: In 1932-1933 in Ukraine about ten million peasants died from hunger. (It turns out that this is not just an
example of the Soviet economy, but also an example of what this book was created to help avoid: having heard the word ''hunger'', Westerners
immediately start talking: better planting practices, infrastructure and roads, better seeds, marketing, soy beans, etc., etc. But wait! There
actually was a bumper crop in this very area for several years immediately preceding the mass starvation. The message of this book
is not to apply your (Western) expectations and experience when you are in Russia.) In fact, these bumper crops actually led to the
starvation: thanks to the good crops they were reaping, peasants were becoming less dependent on the Central Government, and so it made a
decision to exterminate them. A series of Executive Orders was issued: * an Order forbidding the peasants to leave the area;
* an Order swearing all the participants in the Operation to absolute secrecy;
* an Order directing the Army to surround the area; * an Order directing the Army to confiscate all grain, using all force
necessary (and indeed, military force was ruthlessly used); * an Order to sell grain abroad or to place it in protected storage;
* an Order to keep away international relief agencies; * an Order detailing measures to contain cholera and other
infectious diseases caused by failure to bury corpses (of which there were close to ten million in just two years (1932-33), representing
almost the entire population of the area that used to be the breadbasket of the world);
* an order introducing death penalty in cases of cannibalism ''the number of which is on the increase''.
It is true that the grain produced was exported and machine tools bought with the proceeds thus contributing to Stalin's industrialization
drive. From the point of view of the Communists, this was a beneficial fallout from the above measures, but not the goal they had in mind:
getting grain to export by making absolutely sure that every last one of the most productive peasants dies from hunger and the breadbasket of
the world becomes the wasteland it still is --this does not seem to be efficient. The money or the machine tools were clearly not the issue:
had it been impossible to sell the grain, it would, no doubt, have been burned.
And then, there is another very significant ''benefit'' that must not be overlooked: independent peasants were exterminated, but were all
the inhabitants of the area dead? No, not all of them: those who were willing to betray their families survived, those who cooperated with the 30
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authorities survived, those who ate the corpses of members of their family but were not caught in the act, --they survived, too. And these
people had children. This is how, the new kind of people, the Soviet People, were selected and reared.
We must note that an event that seems destructive from an Individual (Western) point of view is often a creative one when seen
from a Communist point of view: we noticed the deaths of the millions of peasants but not the birth of the Soviet People.

Soviet society was bad not because the people were poor, but because they had to betray others and, most of all, themselves, in
order to get food. We are now in a midst of transformation, and the goods that used to be scarce are now available (for those who have the
money). But this is not what the real Russian democrats had in mind: they wished to see Russia that is not so viciously immoral, and yet it is
not any more moral now than it used to be. As for eating well, it is still immoral here: what have you done to eat well? Unless there is an
honest profit or a good harvest, a good meal remains suspect. Well, there is neither an honest profit nor a good harvest.

Why is it relevant? Communist society does not necessarily have to have an inefficient economy. In principle, Communist society can be the
richest society on earth with the most efficiently functioning economy. Take today's North Korea and imagine that an enormous deposit of gold
is found there. There is nothing that prevents the Party from distributing this gold among its citizens, thereby making them the
richest people in the world: it is quite possible, as long as North Koreans are afraid to take a breath of air without the Party's
permission. It is not how efficiently the economy operates, that is, how efficiently it produces goods, but how efficiently the economy carries
out its main task, that is, the task of social remodeling of its people. The centrally planned economy, as such, was not what the
Communists wanted to create, it is not the final result of their attempt at creation, but simply the laboratory in which they did their
experiments on people. In fact, the very structure of the Communist economy testifies to this fact and greatly complicates the task of
current economic restructuring: nothing here was done for people as such, and everything was done either directly for war or for whatever
else was required to remake and subjugate as many human beings as possible. We must keep in mind that the human material that we have
here has come from this lab. And now for the conclusion: the Communist experiment was not
an economic experiment but a social-psychological one, and now, under different economic conditions, the experiment is still continuing, as the
Soviet People and the Soviet Morality are still very much alive (and have not lost power in this country).
Those Russians that are not Soviet, have appeared, and are not being exterminated. Their number is growing, but they are still a
minority. What matters is that they have so far largely failed to influence the moral climate in this country, and the people still breath
not the air of morality and respect for one another, but the air of cruelty and criminality that is Soviet through and through. 31
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Returning to our example, we conclude it was not the lack of grain or the abundance of grain that was important: but rather the effect of
the lack or abundance of grain on the individual and on the people as a whole. To say that the murder of millions or the military-oriented
economy was Stalin's goal is as incorrect as to say that it was not his goal. He paid attention to the economy only in relation to how it
affected people's personalities and his ability to further influence their souls in the direction he had chosen. The economy, indeed, was Stalin's
major preoccupation, but not because he valued it as such rather because it was his main tool in his effort to remodel the people.

Why is it relevant? We must remember that a) we have here human material which has been psychologically
tampered with, as the Russians themselves realize and are first to point out. Thank God that they are still able to notice that they have
been affected, thank God that not for all of them did it become a part of their ''genetic makeup'' (even though sometimes a person who points
it out in his neighbors fails to notice that it also affected himself); b) the Russians were never taught to be economically efficient,
and saw no examples of that; c) more importantly, the Russians are still (no longer because of
the Communists, but because of mafia and taxes) justifiably afraid of becoming economically active;
d) Russia's best people were never part of the economic system, because they did not want to behave in the way the system required.
Night guards, street cleaners, elevator attendants, and boilerroom operators (not counting prison inmates) --that was who the best
people in every Communist state were. And now, few of them are equipped to become good managers. The managers have historically
been selected by the Party, that is, among those who manifested the Communist (envy-based and utterly cynical) moral makeup.

That is why we cannot simply assume that because the work experience of the Soviets was so bad, they will now enthusiastically
respond to the new, free enterprise work environment. For some, it may indeed be the case. But all of them, with the exception of those who
are still in their early twenties, spent significant time as guinea pigs in the social remodeling lab that was the Soviet enterprise, and it will be
hard for them to start working in a different manner.
GOODS PRODUCED BY THE SOCIAL ECONOMY
If the Social Economy means that things are produced only to achieve social ends and there is no production for the sake of improving

people's living conditions, then what could be said about the goods produced by such an economy?
As goods are always scarce, the struggle to get them becomes increasingly fierce while more and more basic goods become the object
of the battle. Note that living under such an economic system does not mean that people lose their entrepreneurial spirit, on the contrary,
there were times when if a Soviet citizen had, say, a chicken on the table, it was proof positive that he was no less successful, industrious,
or well-connected than an average American millionaire. The basic difference between them, however, was that, in order to make his 32
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money an American probably created new products and new jobs, thus improving the life of the entire society. A person who had scarce goods
in the Soviet Union usually had them because he had taken them out of the mouths of those who were engaged in productive activities.

Why is it relevant? Even when they are poor, Communist societies remain extremely elitist because people think about everything they
have in terms of exclusion and privilege. This attitude is still very much here, even after the Communists are gone. The words ''exclusive'',
''expensive'', ''rare'' trigger a much better marketing response than suspect words such as ''available'', ''discount'', ''introducing''.

In the West, we thought that the Communist economy did not work because it produced good things very badly, but the Soviet
economy actually worked perfectly. It just had another goal, which was to produce bad things very well. The West would never be able to
produce so many shoes which are quite so ugly and uncomfortable and therefore perfect for average Soviets to wear. Imagine for a moment a
Soviet person wearing a beautiful pair of shoes. What comes next? Holding one's head high? And what is next? Thinking? Wanting
individual rights? Being ready to defend the rights of others? No, the ugly shoes were desperately needed and, answering the Party's call,
they were produced in quantity. And now, a tricky question: were there people in the Soviet Union, wearing beautiful shoes? The answer is an
emphatic yes. There were plenty of such people. Secret informers wore them and so did propagandists and nuclear weapons specialists.
Executioners and directors of tank factories were receiving them free. (By the way, who are the people who drive expensive cars in Russia
today? Inventors? Entrepreneurs? Professors? No. An expensive car has become a sure mark of a bandit, and this is not an accident.)
In a Communist economy, every product must be either of bad quality or should be difficult to obtain, being distributed only through
the nomenclatura hierarchy. The other large category of products were directed towards the enslavement of the very same people as those
who produced it: it was either tanks or propaganda. The quality of these products were good. (Just think that the Soviets had the best
fighter plane in the world, and then look at their fast food establishments, transport, or agriculture.)
Westerners noticed that the Soviets were drunk and badly clothed. But they did not realize that it was good! Indeed, what could
have been said about the Russians if they were not drunk or wore beautiful clothes? Tens of millions of their relatives perished, and the
survivors are not even drunk? Half the country is in Siberian camps, and yet, the other half wears beautiful clothes?
Note that such reasoning can also be applied today. Yes, it is very hard to invest in Russia, to create new jobs, to produce. For that, we
can blame the government. It is also true that a person needs good things on order to feel worthy of respect. Finally, it is very true that
success must be rewarded and must show. Still, when a Russian spends a million dollars on jewelry, that might tell you something about who
this person is. It might be that he is a son of those who survived the Ukrainian man-made famine; it might be that she is a daughter of those
who, even under the former regime, wore beautiful shoes on the streets of Russian cities. 33
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Why is it relevant? If we claim that our system is better just because we make better shoes than the Communists did (and derive, from
wearing them, the benefits that, alone, make our lives worth living) --what will happen then? We are now sure to find Russians that wear
shoes as good as ours, or better. After all, Russia is one of the best luxury goods markets in the world. But some of these people might well
be scoundrels: to get the same shoes as we wear, they had to do things we did not have to do, and would never have even considered
doing. We might wear the same shoes now, but it might also be quite possible that we did not get them by the same means. Thus, there
would be no fruitful dialogue. And how about the other Russians, the ones who can become our friends? Will we spoil the friendship by
focusing on their inferior shoes? And then, is it the quality of our shoes that makes us appreciate the Western system?

But if the quality of a product under the Communist system could not be improved, it does not mean that nothing could. Indeed, the
system of shortages, deficit, and preferential distribution was constantly being improved and achieved near perfection. The country is
teeming with proud possessors of a pound of onions or a roll of toilet paper, a theater ticket or a place in a line for a machine-made rug. It is
clear that it was completely unnecessary to improve the quality of products under such a system.
Some Westerners think that the main problem of Russian society is the lack of efficient management. But efficient in what? In producing
warheads and stifling dissent the Soviet economy was quite efficient. Soviet achievements in space, in military technology, in spying, and in
destructive diplomacy are impossible to deny. But there was efficiency in the consumer goods sector of the economy, too. This sector also had
some efficient managers. In fact, quite often, one could read stories in the Soviet press about managers who had achieved excellent economic
results, dealt fairly with their workers, and tried to bend the system in order to reduce inefficiency and improve production. But these managers
did not quite understand the system they were living in, as the articles about them were always subtitled ''From the court of law'', and the
managers themselves were heading to prison to serve a ten-year sentence. What were they punished for? For efficiency as such? No. Nor
were they punished for making personal profit, as some of those who were punished most severely took nothing for themselves. They were
punished for independence and, above all, for sabotaging the educational function of the Soviet workplace. Most of those who held
management positions with Soviet enterprises were people of the different kind: they were the ones who could quickly adapt to the
prevailing wind, they took orders and served as mouthpieces. Their personal inclination, if any, was and is quite difficult to discover. They
are hard to trust.

THE CRIMINALIZATION OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY
Here is an especially important point. We see that the Soviet economy was not just a system of production (that often took the form

of destruction), but a system of distribution (and, to an even greater 34
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extent, a system of confiscation). This means that everyone could obtain goods only in strict accordance with his social position. There
was a rule that reward must be inversely proportional to a functionary's independence, and this rule has one very important corollary: the only
way to get more money without sacrificing one's independence was to become a part of the shadow, or even of the criminal, economy. To be
relatively free and to eat at the same time, meant living outside the state structure.
A private teacher, a listener to the ''Voice of America'', a rock music lover, a thief, a black market producer --the state considered
them all criminals in a process of committing the worst crime one could commit: trying to break free. That is how liking rock music and stealing
came to be considered on the same plane. While the criminals and the "criminals" we hiding from the
Communist system, another type of criminals were running it. On what can we base such a claim? No matter how secure or personally
successful the people in power may have appeared, their ideology was based on envy, on a claim against others. Thus, they were a part of an
enormous criminal enterprise, and, either directly or indirectly, they were responsible for all the blood that was shed. They felt this
responsibility, and behaved accordingly, like criminals in hiding. Thus, the overall atmosphere in the country was a criminal one: those who
had a lot to do with the system, had something to hide, while those who had little to do with the system were hiding from it. That is why so
many honest people were dropping out of society entirely, working as night guards or street sweepers.

Why it is relevant? Take a minute to think about it. Imagine a huge country where every citizen, every last one of them, feels that he has
something he can be arrested for. Pick a passer-by on the street, handcuff him, and he would not be surprised, but would confess, ''Yes, I
did read banned books'' or ''Yes, I did sign execution orders for two hundred villagers'', ''Yes, I did steal. '' Every last one of
them would breathe a sigh of relief, ''You can run, but you can't hide, can you? ''

TYPES OF CRIMES
Thus, we should distinguish between several different types of crimes that existed under the Communist system:

First, there were crimes with a political excuse. These crimes included the murder of the Tsar and his family, almost total
extermination of the nobles, priests, businessmen, traders, religious people, peasants, foreigners, those who were well-educated, and
everyone else who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The confiscation and nationalization of property was another such
crime. These were not crimes committed ''by the state'': millions of people enthusiastically participated in this criminal orgy, while those
who did not were being killed off (and thus could no longer physically influence the situation). For these crimes, people were not punished but
rewarded, and yet everyone knew that these were crimes. Second, there were common crimes. Hunger, the breakdown of
industry and agriculture, millions of orphans, incredibly cruel and bloody wars, the end of organized religion, state propaganda that tried to 35
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convince people that the traditional morality was wrong --all of these contributed to an enormous increase in common crime. These crimes
were punished, but those who committed them were given to understand that they could easily become the allies of the system, that
the system was waiting for them and would welcome them back. And finally, there were various manifestation of an attempt to
preserve one's humanity, manifestation of a crime of trying to break free. This crime was committed by those who were against the system,
or those who wanted to get more than the system would give and were ready to work for it. We already mentioned ''economic crimes''
committed by those who simply wanted to be productive. For example, a man who bought flowers from producers in the countryside and sold
them in Moscow was tried and executed as the size of the fortune he had amassed was considered ''too large''. The crime of reading a banned
book was considered as serious as, say, a rape. A distinction between the ''socially-close'' crimes (such as rape) and the ''socially-dangerous''
crimes (such as reading a banned book) was official, and weighed very heavily in sentencing. The crime of trying to remain free always merited
the harshest sentence. In China, a phrase "to strictly control" was used instead of "to execute".

Why is it relevant? All these three types of criminals met in the camps: professors were there next to illiterate thieves, black market producers
next to disgraced party members, the Reds next to the Whites. As a result, the country no longer knew what was proper, and still does not.
Of course, there was the official model of proper behavior: unquestionably follow the today's order, whatever it is. And that also
meant that one had to continuously prepare to rid oneself of the remainder of one's personal morality at a moment's notice, should the
order come to kill or betray a friend. That is why the influence of criminal culture is so strong here. The business ethic in this country is a
criminal one through and through. Resolving business disputes, getting credits, purchasing property --all of it is regulated and controlled either
by outright criminals or by criminally-thinking individuals, and all procedures are guided not by the official, but by the criminal laws.
Thus, the entire economy is not just run by criminals: it is firmly and quite openly based on the criminal ''law''. The Communist system may
be dead, but its unburied corpse has thoroughly poisoned the air.

TWO TYPES OF PROPERTY OWNERSHIP
What lies at the foundation of every crime? It is the claim against another person. The person possesses something, and it is being

unjustly taken away. That is why the notion of crime is so closely connected to the notion of property ownership.
There exist two kinds of arrangements for property ownership: 'me too' and 'no one but myself'. If you are a shareholder, you are one of
those who have some rights to the property and income of the company that issued these shares. But if you own a cow, then no one but you
has the right to milk it. Under the first kind of property ownership, you lay a claim, force others to share with you, stand in line for something.
Under the second kind of property ownership you tell everyone else to keep their hands off your property. It has been Russia's greatest
misfortune that the first kind of property ownership goes all too well 36
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with informal personal relationship, ''Friends must share, mustn't they? '', while the second kind goes deeply against the grain of the
fabric of Russian society ''How come it belongs to no one but you, aren't we friends, don't we breathe the same air and drink the same water? '' It
seems that this is one of the main reasons why racketeering became such a major part of the business climate here.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IN RUSSIA?
The most amazing feature of democratic rule in Russia is the complete lack of desire on the part of the democrats to ask for popular

support, to encourage the creation of grass-roots organizations, to involve the people in the development and implementation of necessary
reforms. It seems that the reformers, anticipating that the transition to a market economy would be too hard on people, hoped that the people
would ''sleep through'' this period. The democrats understood that reforms would entail considerable hardship, but that was not why they
did not talk to people. Everyone here knows that Russian people are ready to suffer if they know what they are suffering for, if they do not
feel that they are being taken advantage of. The democrats did not talk to people because they are elitist, and very Soviet in their upbringing.
For them, the leader is not the one who serves the people but one for whom there is no written laws, one who can do anything no matter
what the cost. The second problem had to do with the legal environment in the
country. Gaidar thought that his task was to give property to private owners. But this is a very dangerous strategy, one that may well end in
disaster, as it pays no attention to the moral climate within the country. Indeed, the real task was to create an envy-free legal
environment into which to introduce private property. Only then could private property be put to free market use, the use that is both morally
purifying and miraculously productive. The catastrophic mistake of reformers was that they did not state
what they were for, and they only could have been for one thing: for justice. If they were to explain to people that justice grows from private
property the way a seed grows from a fertile soil, then everything could have turned out quite differently. Nowadays, the tax inspectorate is no
better than the mafia, the police is worse than any gang of highway thieves, bureaucracy is as corrupt as in any country on earth,
privatization has turned Communist appointees into legal millionaires while the common people got nothing, people's savings have been
destroyed by inflation, and pensions have fallen below the subsistence level. Many people feel that they live worse than they lived before, and,
even worse, many people feel that they live in less honest a country than before!
This is what makes it so scary. Russia has always been a country whose mission was the search for justice. You are probably skeptical
about that, asking yourself why, if it were indeed so, has Russian society always been so unjust? Because the search for justice here was
always passionate and most importantly, human-centered. In the West, they discovered the technique represented by an inanimate thing know
as a Code of Civil Law, and submitted themselves to it. It was not that if you stole you were a sinner, it was not that you should repent, it was
that if the theft was proven in a Court of Law, you went to prison. 37
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It is in this Court that envy was unmasked as a destructive motive and most of its manifestations were, sooner or later, outlawed.
So it was the technique that allowed an understanding of human motives and a degree of control over them. The outcome was that the
British have, for several centuries now, known that private property cannot be just taken away, while the Russians are still not so sure.
Two things stem from this: 1) you cannot rule Russia for long (especially if you are not a
dictator) if your rule is not perceived as just. It does not have to be just in practice, far from it, but it must be so perceived. The intent is
soft (Russian), while the fact is hard (foreign to Russia) --do not confuse the two. You have to come to the people, take your hat off,
and talk to them, not at them; 2) you cannot build capitalism without a Civil Code, and you
cannot have a functioning Civil Code if there is no legal test that every law must pass and if citizens cannot tell a policeman from a criminal.
A real revolution would have been one that substituted envy-based laws with laws that protect one from envy. As this was not done
at all, and there was no ''ideological'' test for public servants, those who served the Communist regime stayed on. Furthermore, there was
no conception of self-rule by free citizenry, and no broadly permissive laws. Thus, it was the bureaucrats who were called upon to manage the
increasingly complex state structure. The number of bureaucrats grew exponentially, and the democratically-leaning newcomers were
completely absorbed in this swamp. Note that the more democratic is the government, the less should be its size as the number of non-governmental
groups grows. (Some Western states also have big governments, but look what these governments actually do!)
As the state is as envy-ridden as ever, it is dirt-poor. Being poor, it pays public servants a ridiculous salary. And yet, some bureaucrats do
not even bother to collect it: the bureaucrats are the ones who enforce the laws, and there is a lot of money in this activity.

A definition: The lofty purpose of law in Russia is to create an external semblance of order. The law here can also be defined as an injunction
that one can avoid either by virtue of one's position or by paying a bribe, or by having powerful friends. A law can thus be created with the
sole purpose of underscoring one's position, collecting money, or rewarding friends. The punishment for breaking or for strictly following
the law depends on who you are and who is against you. And of course, the law in Russia never allows anything, lest people stop wondering
whether or not they are doing anything illegal.

A fact no one disputes: A business that is hundred percent legal (all taxes are paid and all regulations are followed) is impossible in today's
Russia. But a profitable business is very possible in Russia provided you spend all your time thinking how to circumvent the law or, better, who
could help you to do so with impunity. Now, if we ask a Minister of Justice what does he think about the fact that a fully legal business is
impossible here (and he would agree with that), the Minister would show no concern because he knows that the laws are written for those
who are stupid enough to fail to find a way to get exempted. For example, the largest tax debtors in Russia are known to all, and these 38
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are the largest Russian companies, starting with the largest of them all (was not that obvious?).
PRIVATIZATION
Privatization, the major program of Yeltsin's period in office, was certainly well-intentioned, and did bring some results that may yet

prove excellent. There are millions of private entrepreneurs now, and the majority of jobs are now in the private sector. This is fertile ground
for a real democracy, for a system of envy-free laws, for economic prosperity in Russia. For the first time in decades, Russia is a consumer
society: everything is available, and the lines are gone. But in politics everything must be put in perspective. In the process of reform, the
democrats spent so much goodwill that the democratic qualities of the system they established could no longer guarantee the security of the
system itself. If it were not for the enthusiastic support of the openly criminal structures which are the major beneficiaries of privatization,
the system might well have collapsed. The reform turned out to be an alliance of the democrats, the Communist appointees turned millionaire
property owners, and criminal racketeers against the impoverished and confused people who feel that they have been had.
There are three harmful consequences of privatization: 1) Privatization turned the director of each particular enterprise
into its owner. This director was, in most cases, appointed by the Communists, and thus is not so much a competent manager as a
Communist functionary. The workers also got their share in the enterprise, but in most cases, this did not amount to much and only
disappointed and angered the workers. But, you may say, in most countries much is owned by a few. That is right, but the people that you
have in mind owned this business, or even built it from scratch. Bill Gates is not just the owner of Microsoft, he can write a computer
program. Queen Elisabeth II owns a great deal, but she is comfortable with that, as she was groomed to be what she is. By contrast, those
who only yesterday were Communist functionaries, practically in one day became owners, and millionaires to boot. And did they invest their
wealth? This would have been crazy, as the business climate in Russia is one of the most inhospitable in the world. The result was that any
property that could be sold or made profitable was exchanged for Mercedes cars, Rolex watches, and Swiss bank accounts.
Yet again, property was not securely attached to its owner, but was made into a virtual property, something that appears in this
particular moment to be yours, but is somehow not quite your own. We mentioned before that the Russians cannot quite get the sense of
ownership of their own country. In their own army, the soldiers are treated as if they were hated prisoners of war; the Russian state in
general treats its own citizens as if they were undesirable aliens. The Communist economy has always been virtual as it was not serving the
people, but pursuing the goal of social remodeling of them. Now, the Russians have been turned into virtual owners, and a virtual property
cannot be developed: once a piece of it materializes, all you can do with it is steal it .
Now the state's assets are gone (but still need to be subsidized!), the state is poor, production is declining, and there is no investment
capital. Control over productive capacity has also gone as enterprises are now nominally owned by a crowd of microshareholders, while being 39
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managed by incompetent director-owners whose only concern is to flee before their theft becomes known. Three generations of Soviet citizens
worked for a pittance to build these factories, and these factories should not have been simply turned over to their (Communist!) director.
It would have been much better to keep the ownership in trust while hiring a manager, giving him a performance incentive in the form of
stock options. It would have been especially appropriate if we consider that many enterprises are ''company towns'': they own the flats the
workers live in, own the kindergartens their children go to. Such enterprises cannot go bankrupt, as the workers would not even be able
to move to another town (there is no real estate market and there still are residence permits). Thus, the state had to keep these enterprises
afloat by giving them cheap credits. And who is the lucky one who gets this cheap government credit (and then defaults on it with the
government saying nothing)? It is the very Communist-appointed director-owner. So that was the social contract that made the
Communists relinquish power: that, which the Communists did not have time to destroy or steal when they were in power, was to be given to
them as their private possession! 2) The next problem with privatization is even more basic.
Privatization is the (one could even say the only) program of the democratic government. What was it about? To give factories to the
workers and land to the peasants. Well, even that was not done, but let us suppose that it was. Here are the workers that own this huge
plant; here are the peasants that have their very own plot of land. And only then do all of them discover that there is such a thing as the
Information Age in the world. The plant that the workers own is worth its weight in scrap metal minus the transportation costs. And that
amounts exactly to the cost of a pound of potatoes, produced by a Russian private farmer. It could be that the plant is very cheap, or that
potatoes are very expensive. One computer company with three employees is worth more than the Moscow Automotive Works that
employs hundreds of thousands of people, because the Works operates in such a red that the sun can set without anyone noticing. And yet, the
computer company is not worth much, either: it has to pay 80 percent in taxes (subsidizing the Works, to which now a horde of workers-owners
pin their very last hope), and paying the rest to the racket. Thus, Russia has not seen an expansion in potentially competitive sectors,
either. 3) One day soon the Moscow Automotive Works will have be
blown up; one day soon the harvest of an individual Russian farmer, a fellow that must drink a full (8 oz.) glass of vodka just to get out of
bed, will come in, and he would have an opportunity to compare his prices with the world prices. Who will then deal with people's anger and
desperation? Tha