Steve LeVine covers foreign affairs for BusinessWeek. He previously was correspondent for Central Asia and the Caucasus for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for 11 years. His first book, The Oil and the Glory, a history of the former Soviet Union through the lens of oil, was published in October 2007. Putin’s Labyrinth, his new book, profiles Russia through the lives and deaths of six Russians. It was released this week.
Edward Lucas, a colleague from the Economist, lets loose today with an excerpt in London's Daily Mail from his new book, The New Cold War. Lucas, a take-no-prisoners critic of the Putin Kremlin, is one of the most articulate voices writing in English on Russia. I expect his book to do well.
If Steve LeVine's aim … was to chill us to the marrow about post-Communist Russia, he has succeeded.
LeVine's reconstruction of a savagely botched anti-terrorist operation at a Moscow theatre is particularly effective.
With fresh insights into the Chechen wars and Putin’s post-presidency plans, LeVine’s important take on the all-too-real machinations and bloodthirstiness from which espionage thrillers are made is both unnerving and intriguing.
Donna Seaman, Booklist
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6 Comments:
A pretty pathetic display of impotent speen-venting if you ask me. Spend some time on the Russia country page at imf.org, and you'll learn pretty quickly that the main driver of Russia's economic growth has been domestic demand, not the oil windfall, which has been carefully taxed away into the Sterilization Fund and prevented from causing inflation. And as for the "independent media" whose demise Lucas decries, where was he when the oligarch-controlled media marched in lockstep behind Yeltsin in 1996? And it would be nice if he had mentioned that Russian public health indicators rapidly collapsed between 1992 and 1999, with death rates rising 50% in that time and birth rates being cut nearly in half. Nor does he menion that Russia's birth rate has risen almost 20% since Putin took over, and now exceeds Poland's, Ukraine's, and Romania's.
Actually, it might be this last bit that has him so upset...
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2007/pn07123.htm
is indeed interesting. Consumption is still the main engine of growth, not investment.
"Domestic resource constraints are tightening, not least in the labor market, causing increased leakage of demand into imports and renewed inflationary pressures."
The point about demographics is a) that Russia is indeed enjoying a brief spurt because of the rise in the birth rate in the early 1980s. But that plunged in the perestroika and early Yeltsin years. It is those "missing" women who weren't born then who make the outlook so bleak from 2010 onwards. They can't have babies because they weren't born.
Secondly, the point I make mainly in the article is that Russia's _death_ rate is so abnormally high. That is what makes the figures so bad, even now.
When you read my book you will see that I deal in detail with the shortcomings of the Yeltsin years. I highlight the flaws in the media then, and the corruption and voterigging. But the main point is that the Putin/FSB putsch has been a disaster.
Regards
Edward Lucas
Mr. Lucas,
Consumption usually is the main engine of economic growth, making up, for instance, about 70% of the US GNP. And yes, I know, it truly is dreadful that Putin has inflicted higher incomes on Russians ;-)
What do you make of the fact that Ukraine's death rate is even higher than Russia's, and with a birth rate stuck at a level close to pre-Putin Russia's? Is Putin also to blame for Ukraine's death rate, or is it, perhaps, just a suggestion, that the breakup of the USSR really was a disaster for the overwhelming majority of the people living there?
Ukraine was badly misgoverned after 1991 and similar though not identical public-health issues to Russia. Bad government was a big reason for the Orange revolution which has opened the political system in a way that should give Putin-lovers cause for thought.
Consumption is booming because wages anf govt spending are booming. It is hard to imagine a $100-oil environment in which Russia wouldn't be booming. But Illarionov's analysis (and Aslund's) in this case are spot on.
May I suggest that we pause the discussion until my book comes out. The information assymmetry is insuperable until you have actually read the whole book
I agree with Edward. We are commenting on an excerpt. Let's wait until we can remark on the actual book, which comes out Feb. 19th. I'm sure Edward will be happy to return at that time. Until then, thanks Edward for popping over from your blog. Best Steve
"But the main point is that the Putin/FSB putsch has been a disaster."
For whom has the past 8 years been a disaster. Certainly you don't want to make the argument that for the average Russian living in Moscow, Maikop, or Murmansk the changes under Putin have been bad?
I live in Russia Edward. While you may be an expert on Russia, I sometimes think to myself that you are an expert from afar.
The Russia where I live is very different from the Russia you often describe in your blog and in The Economist. Life is happier, more free, more hopeful, more comfortable, and in almost every way better than the Russia where I lived in the 1990's.
Is Russia perfect? Nope, it is not. But then again no country is perfect.
My beef with your reporting approach to Russia is that you paint Russia as unique amongst countries in its negatives. Russia is growing, changing, and improving. You want to suggest that because Russia has flaws all is lost and it's going to hell in a hand-basket. That's not my take.
I sometimes think that the newly assertive Russia is loosely analogous to the American civil rights movement of the 1960's. The white establishment (read: The West) was fine with Martin Luther King (read: Yelstin) because while he advocated change he didn't directly challenge or confront the powers that be. However, the white establishment quickly branded Malcolm X (read: Putin) as a troublemaker and dangerous.
In retrospect history has judged Malcolm X very differently than the white establishment did at the time. Don't be surprised if future historians don't share your vitriol for Putin.
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