Blaming Russia First

Although they appeared bold, the dramatic reforms of late 1991 and early 1992 -- freeing prices, liberalizing trade, and initiating privatization -- were actually a brave face put on the central state's alarming impotence. Yeltsin's lieutenants might have tried to hold off freeing prices and privatization for another year or two, as Ukraine did. But Ukraine's subsequent inflation and asset stripping were even more severe than Russia's. There was certainly at that time an element of economic dogma in the Kremlin's policies and an unmistakable note of free-market ideology in the way they were presented. But the reformers' motivation owed at least as much to desperation.

Were these policies imposed from outside by the crusaders from Harvard and the IMF? The image of Sachs waltzing into the Kremlin to preach the true gospel of Friedrich Hayek is a romantic one. With all due respect to Sachs, however, most people who have met him would not cast him as the Pied Piper of Hamlin. He is smart and articulate enough, but there cannot be many Russian children who would follow him over a cliff, entranced by the beautiful tunes he whistles. Besides, the Russian leaders were grownups. Yegor Gaidar had read Adam Smith and Paul Samuelson long before the Harvard gang came to call. Yeltsin, although anxious for Western respectability, was first and foremost a politician; he was won over to the gospel of monetarism for little more than an afternoon. - 1

Particularly troubling in Cohen's interpretation is his apparent assumption that the Pied Pipers from Harvard brainwashed not just the Russian leadership but much of the country's population. As he points out, there were alternative economic programs -- for instance, those of the Communists. But he neglects to add that most voters repeatedly rejected candidates who espoused such programs. From April 1993 -- when 53 percent of voters said in a referendum that they supported Yeltsin's social and economic policies -- to the presidential election of March 2000, antireform politicians and their positions have been consistently defeated at the polls. Cohen rightly notes that the media is often biased and manipulative, but former Soviet citizens are used to reading between the lines. Similar pro-incumbent attacks backfired in 1993 and 1995, when the "parties of power" under Gaidar and then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin failed to get even 20 percent. And even Cohen notes that in 1996, despite minor falsification of votes, "no serious observers doubted that Yeltsin had actually won." Yet if rational, adult voters chose such candidates knowing the economic policies they favored -- and in all cases except perhaps Vladimir Putin they clearly did -- what do the snake-oil salesmen from Harvard really have to do with it? Were they mass hypnotists as well as economic missionaries? Were Russians too young and gullible to handle democracy?

There is also something vaguely undemocratic about Cohen's demand that the United States change tack and organize an international coalition to provide Russia with $500 billion in aid. (He says he got this figure from "a Russian economist admired for his moderation and good sense.") Although Western nations would be wise to invest more in preventing instability in the world's second nuclear power, the American public has made it absolutely clear in polls that it rejects anything approaching this figure. Should the Clinton administration and Congress be faulted for respecting voters' wishes?

FACING THE FACTS

The economic shock in the 1990s was undeniably severe, and industrial output has fallen sharply. But does this amount to Russia's "demodernization"? Statistics suggest a more complicated picture. In 1990 about one in six Russian families had a car; by 1998 about one in three did. In the same eight years, an additional 32,000 kilometers of road were built. Access to home telephones increased by 40 percent, and the number of international telephone calls grew by a factor of 12. The share of the population with access to three or more TV channels increased from 36 to 68 percent. Infant mortality, after rising in the early 1990s, was lower in 1998 than at the start of the decade.

Such statistics are the domain of economists, and Cohen makes clear he is neither an "economist" nor an "adviser" (although he seems to have quite a bit of advice to offer). He is a historian, and he feels that a sense of history has been missing from the discourse on Russia: "Though it is no longer fashionable to say so in the social sciences ... political, economic, and social realities are shaped by a historical process."

To Cohen, being a historian means emphasizing continuity -- "Russia cannot jump out of its skin" -- and reminding the reader of Russia's authoritarian traditions and lack of experience with private property. But it is not clear quite what he wants practical politicians to do with this knowledge. In the latter case, he seems to be saying that Western policy should support reform plans that aim at a mixed economy rather than advocating American-style liberalism. Presumably he does not mean that Western politicians should also favor traditional authoritarian institutions in Russia rather than democracy.

Cohen is good at skewering journalists who muff their facts when racing for deadlines and take their opinions from the herd. It is entertaining in a sadistic sort of way to see him give the poor hacks a good poke in the eye. (He butters them up in advance by recalling that he once turned down a job as Moscow correspondent.) Stupidities have been uttered and written by many people, including key Russian reformers and their Western advisers, and Cohen does a good job of collecting them.